


The Things We Forget

by astronautsandcoffeebeans



Category: Big Bang (Band), GTOP (Band)
Genre: Drama, Drug Use, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Inspired by G-Dragon's "Obsession" in GTOP album, M/M, Psychological Trauma, So the climax was basically written for me, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:21:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astronautsandcoffeebeans/pseuds/astronautsandcoffeebeans
Summary: This is my first (ever) fic, so forgive me if it's nonsense.I was inspired by Jiyong's "Obsession" in the GTOP album, because the first time I listened to it, it felt so intense and macabre that I was drawn to listening to it over and over. But I didn't want to make it the entire plot, so Jiyong begins in this story with having psychogenic amnesia and his family isn't telling him the truth about his past. The story is about him trying to get his memories back.It begins quite innocuously, but do take note of the tags.





	1. 잊어버린 것들 | The Things We Forget

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of helping with everyone's imagination, the first character that appears in the story actually refers to Kwon Jiyong. And you can imagine the sister who appears as his actual sister.
> 
> Following chapters will be longer than this one, promise!
> 
> Finally, dedicated to S (if you ever see this, because I'm too shy to announce that I've posted my first fic), the person who encouraged me to write when I felt like shit and who constantly feeds me Big Bang news. <3

Pulling his chin-length hair away from his face, Mangyong glanced at his reflection in the mirror, which hung, large and rectangular, above the white porcelain sink in his bathroom. Tying the strands back up in a messy knot, he reached for the facial foam to his right and paused as he noticed his reflection stare impassively back at him. His face was pale, almost gaunt, pointed chin unconcealed by a wiry, black crop of hair, styled in a French cut. His right hand reached instinctively up, as it always did when he noticed his own facial hair, and stroked his chin briefly. It still didn’t  _feel_  right.

“ _Noona_ , are you  _sure_  I used to grow it out like this?” he called out, his head turning back to look over his shoulder.

“Actually, you used to like it much longer,” his older sister replied as she walked into the bathroom, smiling wistfully at his reflection. “You even sported a full beard at one point,” she continued. Side-by-side, their faces seemed like photocopies, except hers was fuller, softer, and beardless, of course.

“It just… doesn’t feel…  _right._..” he murmured, his nail-bitten fingers running lightly through the stubble. His gaze drifted towards the razor sitting on the marbled countertop.

“That’s because it isn’t long enough yet. Stop shaving it and let it grow a little!” she said cutting through his thoughts with a laugh as she turned around to leave.

Perhaps she was right. He had not actually given it a chance to grow out properly, not as far back as he could remember anyway. He decided he would take her advice, and so he picked up the razor, placing it in the empty drawer beneath the wash basin. _Just to be safe_ , he thought, as he pushed the compartment shut with a click.

A soft sigh escaped his lips. It seemed like there was no end to the things he could not remember. He remembered waking up three months ago in what was now his bedroom. He remembered seeing the crown of a man’s head, resting on the space beside his left hand. When he had moved, the man had woken up. This man had later identified himself as his father. And the women who had come in, screaming in joy and disbelief when he had shouted for them, had called themselves his mother and sister.

They told him his name (Mangyong), his age (thirty-one) and his occupation (he worked for his father, in construction and real estate). That he was born in the year of the dragon, hence his name, as they had hoped that he would come to great success in life. That he liked hazelnuts, and sweet treats. That he had dated several girls before, and had even brought one home to meet them, but that, unfortunately, they had broken up when she had gone overseas to pursue her Masters. He memorised the information the way a young child would memorise his times tables, but try as he might, he remembered none of these things. The accident had made him forget. Psychogenic amnesia, the doctor had said.

What made it worse was that he couldn’t be sure of this information, because they had had to tell it to him in English. Aside from the amnesia, he also suffered from bilingual aphasia. His mother tongue was Korean, but he had woken up to speak and understand none of it. The doctor had explained that his case was rare and yet was possible because different parts of the brain are used in speaking one’s mother tongue and any second language that one learns later on in life. So thankfully, the accident that had impaired his ability to comprehend his mother tongue had spared the second-language learning centers of his brain and so his understanding of English, imperfect though it was, had mercifully been retained.

He had spent a good amount of time since he had awoken from the coma in therapy but nothing seemed to be coming back. In their last session, Dr. Lopez had suggested that instead of trying to remember his past, he ought to work on moving on into the future. Getting on with his life, in other words. He decided that if Lopez, who was earning a cool hundred and fifty pounds an hour from him, and who couldn’t possibly have that many other clients on this tiny coastal city of Gibraltar, was telling him to call it quits, he probably ought to be taking the suggestion seriously.

Pulling on a pair of jeans, torn in both knees, and a khaki-green jacket over a white t-shirt with an unidentifiable pattern of blacks splashed across the front, Mangyong let out a second sigh. His first attempt to move on would begin today; he had decided to start learning Korean again from scratch. It was something that he had been putting off, in hopes that the language would come back to him naturally. He had tried various ways to expose himself to the features, sounds and cadences of Korean, hoping that it would jog his memory. In the mornings, it had become custom for him to dedicate thirty minutes to staring resolutely at the _hangeul_ on every page of the newspaper his parents subscribed to. His afternoons, of course, consisted chiefly of sessions with Dr. Lopez. And in the evenings, after dinner, he listened to the Korean songs his sister had downloaded until he fell sound asleep. He had spent three months doing this to no avail–his comprehension had hardly improved from day one. Frustrated at the lack of progress, there had been several occasions where he had insisted that his family speak Korean in his presence, but all he managed to do was to pick up some common words and phrases– _oemma, appa, jeon-yi_ (his sister’s name),  _bap, a-chim, jeo-nyeok_ –something any second-language learner could do. And his family was all too willing to accommodate his loss of ability–his parents had started attending English lessons for his sake and they all spoke in English whenever he was around and told him to take it easy. He decided that he had inconvenienced them for long enough; it was time to begin again.

* * *

 The sky shone brightly on The Rock as Mangyong stepped out into the heat of the summer’s day. He tapped on his phone screen, copying and pasting the address of the Korean school, which he had found online, into the map application on his phone. Just a kilometer away from his house, it seemed. It was not like he had expected anything else. Gibraltar was a small place after all.

About a month after he had awoken from his coma, and had slowly come out of his daze, with Dr. Lopez’s encouragement, he had tried to find out more about who he was, or at least who he had been before the accident. It was about then that he had asked his father why they had moved to Gibraltar. It made little sense that someone involved in construction and real estate would move from a large city like Seoul to one such as Gibraltar. His father had said something about small markets, opportunities that presented themselves and choices that seemed obvious. He had understood none of that, but thought they seemed well-off enough, and so didn’t press the issue.

When he had started leaving the house again, in any case, he found that Gibraltar’s small size made traveling to his destinations quick and fuss-free. His parents had been reluctant to let him start driving again, but when they found that he seemed to have retained the motor skills necessary, gave him free rein of the cars in the driveway. The first time he had taken the Lamborghini out for a night spin, the excitement had sent his adrenaline pumping. He felt like something had awakened in him.

He remembered cruising down Winston Churchill Boulevard when his heart gave a little leap and he saw a flash of light in his mind’s eye. _He was standing on a platform. A stage, perhaps? The lights were bright, glaring almost. And in the darkness behind those lights… a mass of… figures? Were those people? He could hear voices, and they seemed to be saying something thing over and over again._

The image had stunned him and he had let go of the steering wheel momentarily. Thankfully, there had been no other drivers around and he had grabbed hold of the wheel before the car could careen out of control and quickly pulled over by the road side.

_The lights… those people… the voices…_  the memory creeped at the edges of his vision as Mangyong pulled it up once again. He had replayed it in his head multiple times, usually while lying in bed, hoping that his subconscious would connect the dots for him in his sleep. Sometimes, in his dreams, he could almost hear music, alternately loud and fast, slow and soft. Other times, he felt the presence of other people beside him on the stage. But he could make nothing of those dreams. He had shared them with Dr. Lopez, who provided no answers and only more questions.  _What music do you think that is? Is it perhaps the music you have been listening to lately? Who do you think those people are? What do they mean to you?_

A fresh start. That’s what today was. He had tried to chase the images but they had led him nowhere. He had to begin somewhere else. He would not take the Lamborghini. Heck, he wouldn’t even drive–today he would walk. Pulling on his Seoul ‘88 baseball cap, he stepped out of the front gate and walked down the street in the direction of his new school.

When his phone announced that his destination was on the right, Mangyong looked up and found himself surprised by what he saw. The GPS had directed him to Main Street. In front of him stood a Korean restaurant, “Hae’s barbeque. Authentic Korean grilled meats. Opens daily from 5 to 9 pm”. The lights in the restaurant were off. He glanced at his watch. 9 57 am.

_This can’t be right_ , he thought. He tapped impatiently at the screen of his phone, bringing up the website where he had found the address. No, it had to be right. He had copied and pasted the listed address directly. 9 59. Class was due to start in one minute. Heaving a sigh of frustration, he turned to leave but noticed a middle-aged man of slender build with a slight hunch in his shoulders, wearing a dark green and grey striped polo shirt, walking towards him from inside the restaurant, gesturing for him to come inside. He pushed tentatively on the glass door, half-expecting it to stay shut, but it opened smoothly and he was greeted by the smell of the previous night’s grilled pork.

“You come Korean class, yes?” the man inquired.

Mangyong nodded slowly, beginning to wonder if he should have done more thorough research on his new Korean class.

“Upstair,” the man said, motioning towards the flight of stairs by the back of the restaurant. “My wife is teacher,” he added, with a smile, as if expecting the information to allay Mangyong’s doubts, which were growing exponentially by the second.

_Best to get this over and done with_ , he thought, as he stepped gingerly up the narrow flight of stairs. Upon reaching the second landing, he found himself facing a room that matched the first in size. As with the ground floor of the restaurant, the space was filled with circular wooden table tops that had holes the size of large pizzas cut out in the center. Come dinner time, those cavities would be filled with charcoal braziers and metal grills. Above the tables hung large metal tubes that appeared to connect to the ceiling–ventilators to suck the meat fumes away. Unlike the first level of the restaurant, however, the back half of the upper floor was dedicated to  _ondol_ -style seating. The tables in this area were rectangular and low enough that one could eat while seated on the thin, red quilted cushions that had been placed on the floor. It was in this back area that they would be having their lessons, it seemed.

“어서 오세요! Welcome!” a woman, who looked to be in her late forties, greeted Mangyong with a bright smile. She sat with her legs crossed on one of the cushions, at the head of one of the tables facing the staircase. Her students, his soon-to-be classmates, sat on either side of the rectangular table. Mangyong counted five–six if he were to include himself.

“Sorry, I’m late… I couldn’t… didn’t expect this place…,” he mumbled, trailing off, conscious of the fact that everyone else had managed to turn up on time.

“It’s alright.  앉으세요 ! Please, sit,” she said, gesturing to the empty cushion on her left.

And so he sat, if slightly reluctantly, beside her.

“Now we start. Today your first day, so I speak English. Next time, I speak Korean only. First, I do introduction myself. Then, you do introduction yourself, okay?” she asked, looking at each of them in turn as she spoke.

They nodded.

“My name is Hyesuk Lee. I am Korean person. This is my husband restaurant. We come here five years ago. At night, we serve the barbecue. When I serve the barbecue, I hear from many customer that they want learn Korean language. So I think this class is good idea,” she said in a heavy, Korean-accented English, which Mangyong supposed was only to be expected of someone who had not spent most of their life speaking the language. “Now, you do introduction yourself. You say name and why you want learn Korean language,” she added, smiling encouragingly at them.

Mangyong’s tensed shoulders eased slightly when she looked expectantly at the young woman with curly brown hair seated to her right, who eagerly began, “My name is Christine and I’ve always wanted to learn the Korean language. Okay, not ‘always’. Ever since I started getting into K-dramas. I just watched ‘Stranger’ and I think all of you should watch it too. It’s a…”

Mangyong’s brain automatically shut off as Christine let her enthusiasm spill over. He sneaked looks around the table, watching the others as they listened to Christine. There were three more women and only one man, who happened to be the only other Asian person as well. Mangyong wondered if he would have to explain why he had a Korean name and yet spoke no Korean. Should he tell them about his amnesia? Would that make things awkward? Perhaps he should tell them that he had lived in Gibraltar all his life. And… that he had been… adopted by parents who spoke no Korean. But that was a pretty big lie. He ought to have thought this out a little more beforehand. Perhaps he should have hired a private tutor instead.

Then he heard the male voice beside him clear his throat, and realized that he had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had missed the three introductions after Christine’s.

“Hi… My name is Janghyun… but you can call me Hyun,” the young man said, in a deep, somewhat halting voice as he looked across the table.

A Korean then! His interest piqued, Mangyong turned to face Janghyun. A small face, thick, straight eyebrows atop very slightly hooded eyes, prominent but slender nose, and soft lips to complete the look. Mangyong’s heart gave a sudden leap and something in his brain seemed to click into place.

“ _Hyung_ …” the word escaped his lips in a rush of breath. He saw the same face in his mind’s eye, a snapshot of Janghyun caught in a moment of laughter. Janghyun turned to face him, but there was no look of recognition in his eyes, only a slight frown on his forehead.

“Not  _hyung_ ,  _hyun_ … without the ‘g’… ‘hyung’ means older brother I think,” he corrected, without a trace of superciliousness.

“I-I’m sorry… Didn’t hear you very well,” Mangyong replied, looking away. His face was hot with embarrassment.

“That’s alright. It’s a common mistake, actually. Anyway, I’m Korean by heritage, but my parents travel a lot for work and I’ve followed them around, so I haven’t really had the chance to learn the language properly. I arrived here two weeks ago and it seems like we’re going to be in Gibraltar for awhile and I’m taking this opportunity to start learning. It’s always good to know more about your culture, you know?” he continued, his voice picking up momentum as he spoke.

Parents? Arrived two weeks ago? Sneaking another look at Janghyun, Mangyong found himself surprised by how young Janghyun was. Young as Asians tend to look, Janghyun couldn’t be more than twenty-two years old. In fact, aside from the teacher and himself, everyone else looked like they had to be younger than twenty-five. Probably taking advantage of the last bit of the summer holidays to learn a new language. How could he not have noticed it the first time round? Mangyong did not know what memory it was that seeing Janghyun’s face had triggered, but he was quite certain now that they had not met before.

“Mangyong- _ssi_?”

Mangyong’s reverie was broken by the teacher calling his name. Slightly confused, he wondered momentarily how she had known his name when he had not yet introduced himself, but quickly recalled that he had sent her an e-mail to confirm his attendance just yesterday.

“Yes… my name is Mangyong and… I’m here to learn Korean!” he finished lamely. No need to tell them too much, they didn’t seem to ask questions anyway. “Oh, and you can call me Yong,” he added, deciding that he ought to take a leaf out of Janghyun’s book.

To his relief, as he had predicted, no one asked him any questions. With everyone having introduced themselves, the teacher proceeded to hand out _hangeul_ worksheets and they spent the rest of the one and a half hour lesson learning the very basics of Korean writing and pronunciation. Janghyun, of course, was much faster than everyone else and the teacher alternately showered him with praises and effused about him almost constantly. No one seemed to mind and one of the girls, the one who was seated across from Janghyun and whose name Mangyong had not managed to catch, had taken to leaning across the table every few minutes to ask if she was pronouncing a word correctly.

Class ended when the teacher, who had a hair appointment at noon, received a notification on her phone reminding her that she was due at the hair salon in thirty minutes. She confirmed that they would be meeting the next day at the same time, told them to see themselves out when they were done packing up and rushed down the stairs to her appointment.

“So… I noticed you have a Korean name too,” Janghyun said tentatively, stuffing his pencil case into his backpack.

“Yeah…,” Mangyong replied, his voice trailing off as he thought about how best to respond.

“I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but… how come you don’t know any Korean?” he asked. He sounded apologetic, yet seemed unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice. Mangyong noticed the way his head cocked ever so slightly to one side when he asked questions, and found himself thinking that it looked adorable.

“Well,” he began, aware that his classmates, who should have been long done packing their bags by then, were listening intently to every word he had to say. “It’s really quite complicated and… actually, do you want to grab lunch? I have something I want to ask you too,” he continued in what he hoped was an off-hand manner.

“Um, yeah sure!” Janghyun replied.

Mangyong started for the stairs, wanting to leave the restaurant as quickly as possible, before Janghyun could think to invite the rest of the class. He knew that it was not possible that he had met Janghyun before, and had no idea whom it was that he had remembered in that split second. But he also knew that three months of therapy had gotten him nowhere and it couldn’t possibly hurt to find out more about this person, whose face resembled the face of the person he now saw so clearly in his head, and whom, if he would admit it to himself, his heart had already skipped multiple beats for.


	2. 악몽 | Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiyong starts to find out a little bit more about himself and his past. He begins to suspect that he is not who his family claims he is.

“Yong! What’s the rush man! Slow down!” Janghyun called out, widening his stride to catch up.

“It was getting stuffy in the restaurant and I needed some fresh air,” Mangyong said, by way of explanation. “So what would you like to have? How about some rolitos?” he asked, changing the subject before Janghyun could respond.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“I know a good place right around the corner.”

It wasn’t a good place so much as it was the first place that had popped into his mind. Their rolitos were decent, nothing out of this world, but Janghyun didn’t have to know that. Mangyong had just wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the rest of the class. The girl who had leaned across the table to ask Janghyun for pronunciation tips during class had looked like she was hoping for an invitation to lunch, even as Mangyong had rushed them out of the restaurant.

When they had settled themselves down and ordered the rolitos, Janghyun opened his mouth, as if to ask a question, but Mangyong cut him off, excusing himself to go to the bathroom. He wound his way through the closely packed tables and chairs, walking in the general direction of the back, where he thought the bathrooms must be. Finding the entrance to a small stall, he snuck inside and locked the door behind him. It reeked faintly of urine but he was glad to finally be alone with his thoughts.

Now that he was alone with Janghyun, what would he say to him?  _I got into a car accident and got hit really hard on the head and so I don’t remember very much. In fact, the trauma was so bad that I forgot my native tongue. Almost everything I know about myself, I know from what my family members tell me. So I’m trying my best to retrieve my memories now._  It sounded like a bad lie, or a plot from a Hollywood movie. And what about the memory that had surfaced when he looked at Janghyun’s face properly for the first time? How would he even begin to ask him about that?

“Yong! You still in there? The rolitos are out!” Mangyong heard Janghyun’s voice call out to him from behind the wooden door.

“Yeah! I’ll be right there!” he yelled back. He realized that he had been spending a good part of his day spacing out, particularly in front of Janghyun, and he wondered briefly what the younger man must make of him.

Sitting himself back down at the table, Mangyong took one look at the rolitos in front of him and began to eat with such intensity and concentration that one might have wondered if he were doing a really difficult math problem instead.

“So… you asked if I wanted to grab lunch… you didn’t mean for us to just  _have lunch_  together right?” Janghyun asked, barely concealing the annoyance in his voice.

“No… I suppose not…” Mangyong mumbled in reply, chewing his mouthful of rolitos slowly. “These are made from beef slices you know?” he added, trying to fill the silence.

Janghyun did not respond. He looked steadily at Mangyong, waiting.

“Alright, let’s jump straight into this then. Since you insist. You’re right about me being Korean. But I can’t speak the language, not a single word of it because I suffer from bilingual aphasia,” Mangyong began. He told Janghyun about the car crash, about his amnesia, about the fact that he still couldn’t retrieve most of his memories. Once he had begun, he found that talking about it was much easier than he had expected and he rattled on. It was the first time Mangyong had told a stranger about his condition, and Janghyun, to his credit, listened attentively, nodding at the right intervals, leaning in whenever Mangyong’s voice got softer, not once interrupting him, even when Mangyong’s explanations were more confusing than they were illuminating.

When he found that he had run out of things to say, Mangyong stopped almost as abruptly as he had begun. The silence sat between them but it was more comfortable this time. Pushing the remaining rolitos around on his plate, pausing to slide a morsel into his mouth every now and then, Mangyong found himself sneaking furtive looks at Janghyun. _He_ is _very pretty_ , Mangyong thought.

“You don’t remember anything at all? Even with the therapy?” Janghyun finally asked.

“No, nothing…,” he replied softly. “Well, actually, I do have one memory–two, if you count the one that came back this morning,” he continued, pausing before correcting himself. “But neither of them really make sense,” he added quickly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s the one from when I was driving down Winston Churchill Boulevard, you know, the one that intersects with the airport runway?”

Janghyun nodded.

“I was on this… stage, I think. And there were all these people watching me… Then, that same scene started to appear in my dreams, and sometimes I would hear music. Sometimes the people watching me would say things, and there was a rhythm to it, so I think they were chanting something. And sometimes I’d get the feeling that there were others beside me on the stage and I’d try to turn around, to take a look at them, you know? But even if I somehow managed it, I wouldn’t be able to see their faces…,” he said, his voice getting softer with each word.

“And this morning? You said something about a memory this morning,” Janghyun asked, a slight frown creasing his forehead.

“Um… yeah… well, uh… I was looking around in class, at everyone, and um… I had this flashback of sorts…”

Janghyun waited. It seemed like he had realized that the best way of dealing with Mangyong’s bouts of reticence was simply to wait.

“It was of… a person. This man… And he was smiling,” Mangyong said eventually. As comfortable as he felt telling Janghyun about everything else, Mangyong did not think that it would be a good idea to tell Janghyun how much the face resembled his.

“What did he look like?” Janghyun probed.

“Like a… regular person’s… Eyes, nose, mouth, the works…”

“You’re not very good at describing, are you?” Janghyun asked, teasingly, his face splitting into a grin. He had taken Mangyong’s woefully inadequate description for a lack of creativity, rather than an intended omission. Glad though he was of being spared, his heart twinged as he thought about the resemblance between the face of the one sitting right in front of him and the one now etched in his mind’s eye.

“Fuck! It’s already one thirty!” Janghyun’s sudden expletive caught Mangyong by surprise.

“You need to leave?” Mangyong asked, somewhat apologetic for having kept him for so long.

“Yeah, I have this interview thing at two for a part-time position,” he explained. “Can you get this one? I’ll get the next one,” he added, already rising from his seat.

“Sure, go ahead,” Mangyong said, waving him off, “you don’t want to be late for your interview.”

The suddenness of their parting left Mangyong feeling hollow. He footed the bill, and took a slow walk back home, distracting himself by repeating various combinations of hangeul characters in his head.  가나다라마바사아자차카타파하 *. Soon, his mother tongue would start to make sense to him again.  거너더러머버서어저처커터퍼허 . Perhaps… perhaps his memories would come back to him then.  구누두루무부수우주추쿠투푸후 . The words sounded like some kind of spell, and when the thought crossed his mind, he wished that it were a spell to unlock his subconscious mind.

Arriving home, he found both his parents and his sister out, and the house seemed twice as large in its emptiness. He climbed up the stairs, plodded to his bedroom and sunk onto his bed, the fresh sheets making a muted rustling noise as he curled up upon them. He shut his eyes and, for the first time since he had left the cafe, let his mind fill itself with the image of the man whom he still could not identify. The man’s face swam across his vision, and he heard himself whisper “ _hyung…_ ” before sleep stole upon him, quick as a burglar in the night.

_He was walking on a grassy turf. And he knew somehow that these were camping grounds. There was a caravan in the distance and five foldable camping chairs set up behind a wooden slatted table. A figure walked ahead of him, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved khaki-green shirt._

_And then he was no longer walking, but seated on one of the chairs. The sun was setting and he saw, a short distance in front of him, a mess of people, some of them with cameras. Lights, bright lights. Were they filming something? He heard a voice. It was deep, and it came from his left. He turned his head to look. Janghyun! No, that wasn’t Janghyun. The knowledge came to him in a flash: this was someone he called “hyung”. He noted slight differences now. This person’s skin was fairer, his lips fuller… and his smile… But this time he wasn’t smiling. He had tears in the corner of his eyes and tears running down his cheeks. Why was he crying?_

_All of a sudden, everything went dark. It took him awhile to realise it but he was somewhere else now. He was lying in bed and the sheets felt soft against his skin. He was naked. He didn’t remember getting naked. He got up, slid off the bed. There was someone else there. Too dark to see. Curtains. Draw the curtains. It was bright, too bright. His head hurt. He was thirsty. Go back to bed. No, there was someone else there._

_He needed water. He turned away from the window, back towards the bed, and saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind it. Someone was lying on the floor on the other side, his body blocked from view. Whose body? A niggling sense told him that he had to find out. He squinted. His head hurt. He stumbled towards the bed. Whose body? He tried to step over the feet, to walk to the other side, but his legs were lead. He tripped, fell. The carpet was rough. He felt it when his palms and knees hit the floor. He had to know. He dragged himself forward. And then he saw the face of the person he called “hyung”, pale and unmoving, and he screamed._  

He awoke and the image vanished, but he did not stop screaming. He screamed, loud and high, until his throat felt raw and his voice gave way to a cracked hoarseness. At first, he screamed from the shock of recognition and then some more, when the shock gave way to horror–the eyes: shut, the pale, bloodless face–he knew what they meant. And he screamed, even when he awoke and the horror had melted away, because he knew, somewhere inside him, that although he could no longer see the horror before his eyes, that it was part of reality.

When he finally stopped, he was keenly aware of the fact that he was, as he had been when he had fallen asleep, alone. He had screamed for a good five minutes but no one had come rushing to see what the matter was. The house was silent and sunlight was still streaming through the half-drawn curtains. He checked his watch and found that it was just past 4 pm. The dream–no, the memory–hadn’t lasted for as long as it felt then.

He ran his fingers through his hair, damp from perspiration, and noticed that his heart was still thumping rapidly. Getting out of bed, he headed towards the bathroom, peeling off his shirt, now stuck to his torso, at the same time. He then pulled off the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, turning it on at full blast. He put his face directly beneath the shower head and let the needles of cold water spray like arrows onto his skin. The pain helped numb the fear.

If what he had seen was real–and he was certain it was–he knew he could not be Kim Mangyong, son of a real estate mogul. What was a real estate mogul doing in a tiny place like Gibraltar anyway? And what about the rest of his family? Who were they? The people he lived with most probably were actually his sister and his parents–they had shown him photographs taken from his youth. But why had they lied to him about his past? No, he didn't know that they had lied, he only knew that they were hiding important information from him? What was it that they were not telling him? Who was he? Was Mangyong even his real name? That he had been afflicted with some form of head trauma was certain since he suffered from psychogenic amnesia, but had he hit his head in a car crash? What sort of life had he led before the accident? Why did his family think it was necessary to hide this from him? If he confronted them, would they tell him the truth? But what proof did he have that they were lying, aside from the visions in his head?

His head pounded at the stream of questions that refused to let up. He turned the shower off and rubbed at his face, wiping the remaining droplets off with his bare hands. He stepped out of the cubicle and stared at himself in the mirror for the second time that day, ignoring the pool of water now forming beneath his feet. What should he do? What did people do in circumstances like this? The ridiculousness of his question made him laugh out loud. How many people even had the… pleasure of being faced with his circumstances?

Standing in front of the mirror, staring at his own reflection, he suddenly remembered the conversation he had had with his sister that morning. “Let it grow out,” she had said. And he had decided to trust her judgment, to trust that she, who had all her memories, knew him better than he knew himself. But what if his instincts were right and she wasn’t to be trusted? Before he could change his mind, he had reached for the razor that he had placed in the top drawer that morning. A large dollop of shaving foam and a few quick downward strokes later, he was clean-shaven for the first time as far back as he could recall. He smiled. It wasn’t that he liked this look more, it just felt like something he was more familiar with.

Pleased with himself for this small step, he toweled off and decided that confronting his family was something that could be done later. He had not come to any harm under their care in the past three months and it was not like they had been restricting his movements, he reasoned. For all he knew, his freedom might be conditioned on his inability to remember his past and he did not want to have that curtailed right when he was starting to find out the truth about himself. He would pretend that nothing was the matter. He would try to find out more about who he was before he decided what to do next.

In the evening, his parents returned home before his sister did. Going down the stairs when he heard the car door slam, he saw his father carrying a few bottles of wine and his mother shutting the door behind her as she walked in. Their features seemed to freeze when he greeted them and they noticed his clean-shaven face for the first time.

“You… shaved!” his mother noted. He wondered if her voice was truly half an octave higher than usual, or if he was simply imagining it.

“Yeah… I got tired of the bearded look,” he replied simply.

When his sister came home an hour later, her brows rose in surprise when she saw him. “I thought you were going to take my advice,” she said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Yeah, I was going to…” he said, letting his voice trail off as she walked up the stairs and out of earshot. Her disappointment made him feel irrationally guilty and he wondered if he was wrong about his family hiding things from him after all.

That night, he took a few tablets of Anarex, in part to cope with the pounding in his head that refused to subside and in part to send him to what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep.

He woke up the next morning with his head swimming, and images of the man he had called “hyung” seem to fade in and out of his mind. He rolled over, intending to go back to sleep, when he remembered that he had another Korean class to attend that day. Perhaps Janghyun could help him find out more, if he just knew how to ask.

9 am. It was a little early to be setting off for class, but he had nothing else to do. He arrived at the restaurant at 9 30, and was the first to sit down at the table, earlier even than the teacher, who had come to the restaurant door with her make-up half done and her hair still in curlers, telling him to make himself at home while she got herself ready for class.

As if to make up for his family’s less than enthusiastic reaction to his clean-shaven face the previous night, every one of his classmates complimented his new look, all except for one girl, who looked at him with her head tilted to one side for a good few minutes and whose jaw fell open when Janghyun arrived, just barely on time, to sit beside him.

She leaned across to him, as if to say something, but her voice was drowned out by the teacher’s, announcing that class was about to begin. And so they spent the next half an hour revising the _hangeul_ that they had learnt the previous day and the hour after that learning how to conjugate verbs in the present tense to be used in polite, formal contexts. + ㅂ니다 if there was no final consonant and - 습니다 if there was. It was more difficult than he had expected, but it gave him something else to concentrate on, especially since he was the only one who hadn’t managed to master the pattern when the hour was up.

It was the end of class and he was about to ask Janghyun out for lunch again when the girl, whose name was Salma, came up to him.

“I’ve wanted to tell you this since the beginning of class,” she began, her voice raised in excitement.

“Yeah, you looked like you were about to tell me something just now,” he said, remembering.

“This is going to sound so incredibly silly, but you look like someone I know! I couldn’t tell yesterday because of the beard and all.”

“Someone you know?”

“Well, not  _know_  know. Not personally.”

“Who is it, then?” he asked, because it seemed like she was waiting for him to.

“Kwon Jiyong!” she exclaimed. “G-Dragon! From Big Bang? Come on, you  _have_  to know them!” she added, when he looked at her blankly.

“Oh! I know who they are,” Janghyun, who had hung back to wait for him, said to Mangyong's surprise. “I get that sometimes. They say I look like–”

“–TOP!” Salma burst out, before he could finish his sentence.

“Yeah, exactly!” Janghyun said, nodding.

“Who’s that?” he asked, turning to Janghyun.

“Ah, it’s just some idol from a Korean boy band. In fact, I don’t think they’re even active anymore,” Janghyun replied, offhandedly.

“Yeah, they disbanded about a year ago,” Salma concurred. “I used to be a huge fan,” she explained. “TOP was my bias,” she added, smiling in Janghyun’s direction.

_Could this be a coincidence?_ Mangyong wondered.

“What happened to them?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly at the end from excitement.

“Like I said, they disbanded,” she replied, “Are you alright? Your voice seems a little weird,” she asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m great. I mean, why did they disband?” he asked, trying hard to sound casual. “You made it seem like they were really popular and all, you know, ‘you have to know them!’” he added, making little air quotes with his fingers.

“Well… to be honest, I’m not entirely sure. It happened so suddenly. They were going on tours, releasing new music and one day, YG–their agency, you know–just dropped the announcement. They didn’t even do a goodbye tour or hold a press conference or anything, so that pissed a lot of fans off,” she elaborated, her own irate voice betraying her.

“You never tried to find out more about what happened?” he probed, trying to keep the perplexity out of his voice, “I thought said you were a huge fan.”

“Well, I did try, for awhile. We all did, the fans I mean,” she replied, defensively. “There were rumors going around that something bad had happened to them. Some said it was a drug-related incident and that someone had died. Others said they just got fed up of being in the limelight and thought that was the best way to go. After awhile, there were so many theories it was difficult to keep track of all of them,” she continued with a sigh.

“And so, no one knows what actually happened?” he asked, almost rhetorically.

“I’m sure some people know. Their families, for instance. After the announcement, we never saw them again. Not the members. Not their families. They got rid of all their social media accounts and one of the members, Seungri, who ran several businesses, even left legal documents with instructions on what to do with them,” Salma said, with a slight shake of her head. “It seems like he knew what was going to happen. He had made preparations for it…, ” she paused, looking at him in the face, “you really do look like him, you know? Kwon Jiyong. Hyun’s almost a spitting image, but he’s young and his lips are too thin. You, on the other hand… but who am I kidding? You’re learning beginner’s Korean. And, no offense, but you’re not even that good at it,” she said with a laugh.

His smile was pained. “One last question,” he said, “just out of curiosity… do you… still… listen to their music?”

“Yeah, every once in awhile. When I’m in the mood for nostalgia. But I’m into another group now. EXO, have you heard of them? SM treats their fans much more kindly you know?” she added as an afterthought. “I mean, you know what it’s like in the K-Pop world. You fall in love with an idol group, stream their songs day and night so that they’ll top the charts, spend thousands of dollars on their concerts, supporting them, and then, suddenly, they pull the rug out from under you. What’s a girl to do then?” she added, “sometimes I ask myself if all of this is emotional investment is worth it. It sounds insane but you put so much of yourself into it that when something happens to them, you feel like your heart’s been ripped out.”

He could hear the distinct sadness in her words. “I-I’m… sorry,” he murmured, and found that he could not look her in the eyes.

“Nah, it’s not your fault. Even if you did make me go into much greater detail than I’d expected,” she replied, her voice quickly turning chirpy again, “wanna grab lunch together or something?”

“M-maybe tomorrow. I have some things I need to take care of today. Hyun, how about the two of you go together?”

Janghyun, who had been listening to their conversation in a thoughtful silence, looked up in surprise. _Had he managed to put two and two together?_  “Um… yeah, why not. If you don’t… need my help,” he said, pausing to choose his words carefully. “Anyway, here’s my number. If you need anything, just call,” he added, tearing a sheet of paper off from his notepad.

“Sure, thanks,” Mangyong intoned, forcing himself to smile before excusing himself to dash out of the two-storey building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * For those of you who can't read hangeul, this reads "ga na da ra ma ba sa ah ja cha ka ta pa ha" and then "geo neo deo reo meo beo seo eo jeo cheo keo teo peo heo" and finally "gu nu du ru mu bu su oo ju chu ku tu pu hu". It doesn't have any particular meaning. Hangeul is made out of a combination of consonants and vowels and when one first begins learning Korean, this is something that teachers might get students to do because it helps them to remember the hangeul and to practise their pronunciation.


	3. 권지용 | Kwon Jiyong

Kwon Jiyong. G-Dragon. From Big Bang. Was that him? Was that his real name? Was he–no, had he been—an idol in a K Pop group? It sounded too strange to be true. But it did explain the stage he had seen in his memories, the cameras and the bright lights. It also explained why he kept seeing Janghyun’s lookalike in his visions. The person he had called “hyung”. His pale face, his naked body still as he lay on the rough carpet. Had they been in Big Bang together? TOP… that was his name, wasn’t it? No, it didn’t sound Korean. A stage name, probably. They had been part of a group together. Salma had said that the group had disbanded about a year ago and no one properly knew why. A year ago… When had his family come to Gibraltar again? He could ask them, but who could guarantee that they would tell him the truth?

There was still too much that he didn’t know, so much missing information. Was he perhaps having illusions of grandeur? Was he just sick of being Kim Mangyong, son of a real estate mogul, with nothing–no special accomplishments–to his name? He had spent three months after he had woken from his coma trying to piece things back together with Dr. Lopez to no avail, and yet suddenly, it seemed like he had a clue. Was this actually a clue or was he projecting?

A barrage of thoughts and doubts continued to plague him as he walked aimlessly on. He needed to find out more, but he couldn’t–no, wouldn’t–go home. If he was truly Kwon Jiyong, then his family was hiding something much bigger from him than he had previously thought. He didn’t trust himself to face them. 

In the end, he decided to head towards the closest place that had a stable Internet connection that wasn’t in his house or on the tiny screen of his phone—the nearest Internet café. He needed to find out more about Big Bang, about the role that he had played in it and about TOP, among other things. Using his phone, he quickly found an Internet café and immediately paid the cashier for two hours worth of service.

Settling himself down in one of the booths by the corner, he wondered momentarily if Internet cafés were always so dark. But he found, to his pleasure, that the keyboard had a rainbow backlight and the keys made audible clicking noises when he depressed them. Ostentatious, and yet, he liked it. Grinning to himself, he pulled up the Chrome browser and typed ‘Big Bang’ into the search bar.

‘The Big Bang | Science Mission Directorate’

‘What is the Big Bang Theory? - Space.com’

That clearly wasn’t what he was looking for; he had to be more specific. He clicked on the search bar again, this time adding the words ‘Korean band’ to his query. To his surprise, the search turned up over 130,000,000 hits. They must have been  _really_  popular, he thought, as he scrolled quickly through the first page.

‘Big Bang (South Korean band) - Wikipedia’

‘BIGBANG - YouTube’

‘BIGBANG on Spotify’

On the right most column of the screen was also a short introduction, accompanied by tiny thumbnails of the band members.

“Big Bang is a South Korean band formed by YG Entertainment. Consisting of members G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Daesung, and Seungri, the group officially debuted on August 19, 2006. They announced their decision to disband on September 20, 2018…” he read, his lips moving silently.

What did these members look like? Did he really look like G-Dragon? Curious, he clicked on the first thumbnail and the image expanded to fill his screen. All five members stood in different positions, their faces glowing, clearly posing for the camera. Two were clothed in white, the remaining three in black. The members in black either had their hands in their pockets or down by their sides. The one in the center was holding his hands up to his opened mouth, the thumbs and index fingers on each of his hands curling to form two laterally inverted ‘ok’ signs. The other member in white stood on the far left, his torso bent forward at a slight angle from the waist, his left hand on his jean pocket, arm held akimbo. His right hand appeared to be pulling at a strand of hair. Was that… him? He squinted and tried to imagine himself striking such a pose and a chuckle escaped his lips. He couldn't help but laugh at the ludicrousness. His gaze traveled to the next person in the photo… wait, that was TOP, wasn’t it?

Quickly, he clicked on the image tab, bringing up many more images of the group. This time he felt a chill run down his spine. It was like seeing his doppelgänger. His face–his actual face–was slimmer, more gaunt-looking to be exact. And his hair, dyed various shades in the photographs, was now black. Where it had been light and bouncy before, it now hung limply from his scalp. But that was to be expected of someone who had been in a coma for a few months right?

When he clicked on the ‘News’ tab, he found that the most recent result was from an article written a month ago.

‘Big Bang disbandment: what we know after a year - 17 Aug 2019’

‘Big Bang’s Daesung spotted? - 1 May 2019’

‘Still no news of Big Bang members after sudden disbandment -  23 Dec 2018’

He scanned through the articles and realized how accurate Salma’s summary of the situation had been. The disbandment had seemingly come out of the blue and the members had all but disappeared from the public eye after that. Each of the articles peddled their own rumors of what had happened and many of them touted sightings of one or more of the members, complete with pixellated paparazzi shots of men in masked faces and black clothing. None of them helped shed light on the most important question he had—whether he was Kwon Jiyong and, if he was, how he came to be here.

After spending a good half an hour reading article after article, his eyes began to blur. He had found out a good many things, including the fact that TOP’s real name was Choi Seunghyun. Remembering that Big Bang had, after all, been a boy band, he decided that he needed to listen to their music. A few clicks later, he was on YouTube, listening to what was possibly his own album. Kwon Ji Yong, released June 8th, 2017–about a year before the band had been dissolved. He then found himself hit by the perennial question that one faces when one first hears their own voice on a recording: is _that_ what I sound like? 

He glanced furtively at his surroundings, then having confirmed that there was no one else in his immediate vicinity, tugged the right side of his headphone back, so that it sat behind his ear. Listening to the lyrics of 'Superstar' closely on the remaining side, he tried to mimic the lyrics he heard, "I need somebody / I ain't got nobody / I need somebody / Any goddamn body, hello." He supposed he could imagine the voice in the music being his if he tried really hard, and if he added more… swag to his current voice.

He was listening to the last few notes of ‘Untitled’ when his phone buzzed. It was his sister. His sister! If the band had been so popular, surely the paparazzi would have gotten hold of some photographs of Kwon Jiyong with his family! How could he not have thought of this sooner!

Ignoring the call, he grasped at the mouse clumsily, clicking for the search bar, then frantically typing ‘G-Dragon family’ into it. The screen stayed blank for a fraction of a second and then he saw the faces of his family members smiling back up at him.

* * *

The midday sun was glaring down on the streets when Kwon Jiyong stepped out of the Internet café. Despite all he had found out that day, he felt strangely calm. Kwon Jiyong. So they had kept the dragon when they had rechristened him. A quick search had told him that his sister had had her name changed too. Kwon Dami–that was her birth name. She still designed clothes, albeit for a different label.

He wanted to go home. To confront them. To ask them what they were hiding from him and why they were hiding it. But when he had finally picked up his sister’s calls and heard her voice, asking where he was and whether he would be home for dinner, he knew that it would be of no use. If she and their parents could act like nothing had happened for this long, if they could lie to him so boldly and blatantly every single day, he saw no reason that they would not continue to do so. Sure, he now had hard proof of who he was, but what good would that do? He might be able to get them to admit that they were lying, to say that he was really Kwon Jiyong, but these were things that he was already certain of and he no longer needed their confirmation.

What he did need, however, were his memories. The information he had found online had helped him discover his identity but they had not brought his memories back. He  _knew_  who he was, the photographic evidence was clear–but he did not  _feel_  like this person.

He did a quick mental breakdown of the memories that had returned to him. The stage, he now knew, came from his performances. Many of the articles he had read stated that the group had performed in tours all across the world, and it was hardly surprising that that had been the very first memory he had recovered. And then there were the ones that had come back to him the previous day. The first part of the memory, he gathered, had come from when he and the group were shooting a one day variety program for YouTube Red, called ‘Run, BIGBANG, Scout!’. YouTube had very kindly linked him to it when he had finished listening to his latest, and last, solo album. The second part, however… with Seunghyun  _hyung_ … _what had that been?_ He couldn’t be sure, but  _hyung_  hadn’t looked very… well.

Frowning, Jiyong pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. Where had he put that little scrap of paper? He rummaged through all four of his pockets before he found it lodged, slightly damp, in one of the back ones, so crumpled he would have thrown it away without a second thought if he had not been looking for it. When he had unfolded it, he found that the numbers, written in ink, had run a little from his perspiration, but were thankfully, still legible. He tapped what he could make out into his phone, and listened to the dial tone, waiting impatiently for Janghyun to pick up.

“Yong! I was just wondering how to get in touch you!” Janghyun’s voice sounded breathless as he spoke.

“Yeah, I was busy,” he replied, with a non-committal shrug, which he realized Janghyun couldn’t see.

“So… Salma said some really crazy things huh?”

“Mm, yeah… I guess...”

“Do you think…?”

“I don’t know, but I need to see you, Hyun.”

“See me? I’m not TOP, you know that right? I just happen to look like him.”

“It’s not that… I just need someone to talk things through with. That okay?”

“Yeah, I suppose. I’ll meet you at the rolitos place in… half an hour?”

“Mm, alright. See you there.”

He didn’t need to talk things out with Janghyun. He just needed to see him. He figured that if seeing Janghyun the previous day had brought back a few memories, seeing him again, and perhaps really  _looking_  at him this time, could help bring back a few more.

The rolitos restaurant was not located very far from the Internet café and even after taking his time with choosing the seats and settling himself in, Jiyong was still fifteen minutes early. If he was going to spend the next few hours staring at Janghyun’s face, he needed to think of things to say. Perhaps he would simply go through the stuff he had just found out–that should keep them occupied for awhile.

What Janghyun said when he arrived stunned Jiyong.

“Let’s go,” he said, not even bothering to sit down.

“What? Go where? You just got here!”

“To your therapist. You know where he works right?”

“My therapist? What for? I told you, he’s not great at what he does,” Jiyong replied, still firmly stuck to his chair.

“I did some thinking on my way here. I think that if you want to get your memories back, he’s your best bet.”

“I’ve been visiting him for three months and he hasn’t helped me at all!” he protested, frustrated at Janghyun’s seeming inability to understand. He had half a mind to tell the younger man to leave, but Janghyun seemed like his only open connection to his former self.

“Have you tried hypnotherapy?” Janghyun asked, surprising him.

“Hypnotherapy? Where the doctor hypnotizes the patient and tries to help him retrieve his memories? We discussed it once, Dr. Lopez and I,” he replied, wondering how Janghyun had come to know of hypnotherapy in the first place. “But he said that the brain under hypnosis is more susceptible to influence, and so he could end up accidentally planting “memories” into my mind, rather than helping me unearth actual ones,” he added, recalling his brief conversation with Lopez on the subject.

“That may be the case, but what do you have to lose? Isn’t it better than just waiting for the memories to resurface? Look, when you said you were “busy” just now, I assumed what you really meant was that you had been looking up what Salma said,” Janghyun explained. Taking Jiyong’s lack of response for assent, he continued, “the fact that you took so long to give me a call tells me that what you saw convinced you enough to keeping looking. And, let’s be honest, I’ve seen the way you look at me. Remember when we first met, and I introduced myself? You called me “hyung”. I thought that was a mistake at first, that you mispronounced my name, but given everything that you told me yesterday and what I heard from Salma today, I truly think you’re Kwon Jiyong, even if you don’t. I don’t know why the people around you have been keeping your identity a secret from you, but if they have, it means they can’t be trusted. So, right now, the only surefire way of finding out about yourself is for you to get your memories back.”

Jiyong looked up at Janghyun, his face registering both surprise and apprehension. “What if… I  _am_  Kwon Jiyong? What would you… do?”, he asked, his voice tentative.

“If you’re worried that I’ll out you, I won’t,” Janghyun said simply. “You know what happens if you look a lot like a celebrity? You get chased around by the paparazzi a lot. A few years ago, my parents started choosing flights that would arrive in the middle of the night, just so we could get to a place without me being mistaken for TOP and having to deal with the crowds, so I know what that feels like,” he elaborated, a tired smile on his face.

Jiyong didn’t know what to think. Janghyun was much more perspicacious than he had given him credit for. “Let’s go see Dr. Lopez then,” he said finally, rising from his seat, “his office is a twenty minute walk from here. I don’t have an appointment today, but he doesn’t have many patients, so I should be able to get a slot.”


	4. 황홀경 | Ecstasy

Dr. Lopez’s office was on the highest level of a small but well-maintained three-storey building. A narrow staircase led from the entrance on the first floor to an upscale hair salon on the second, before winding up to his office on the third. The office was air-conditioned in the summer, but it was now mid-September and autumn was approaching so the windows had been left open. Jiyong stood at the window farthest from the reception, looking out at the cloudless, blue sky, feeling the gentle breeze run across his skin. The receptionist had told him that Dr. Lopez was currently with a client, but would be free to see him from 4 to 5 pm if he was willing to wait. Janghyun had wanted to stay, but had had to leave by 3 30 for his first day working as kitchen crew at a restaurant.

Jiyong stepped away from the window and exhaled slowly. The weather was cool and the air crisp but he felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. He inhaled, counting slowly up to eight, and exhaled again. His chest felt tight, as if someone had wrapped his lungs up in cling wrap a hundred times over. Janghyun’s presence had helped keep him calm. Jiyong had met the young man only yesterday, and yet, Janghyun had somehow managed to climb the ranks to become the most (perhaps the only) trustworthy person in his life. He wondered, for a second, how much it was because of the way Janghyun looked and his thoughts strayed to Seunghyun  _hyung_  and what kind of relationship it was that they had had. According to his research,  _hyung_  had joined Big Bang on his recommendation and they had spent a good part of their young adult lives together. These sources had said that they were close. But none of this explained his memory of them together in that dark room. What had they been doing? Why had they both been unclothed? Why had _hyung_ been on the floor? He shivered at image in his mind’s eye and shook his head, trying his best to clear it.

“Mr. Kim…? Mr. Kim!”

It took Jiyong several confused moments to realize that the secretary was calling for him. Kim Mangyong–that was the name he was registered under. Was it his turn already? He had not even noticed the previous patient leave. Arising from the couch, he approached the reception.

“Dr. Lopez will see you now,” the receptionist said with a practiced smile, gesturing briefly towards the door to her left.

He smiled blandly back at her and knocked on the wooden door.

“Come in!” Dr. Lopez called from inside the room. “Mangyong! It is you again! I thought you decided to cut down on the therapy sessions,” he commented, his head tilted quizzically to one side upon seeing Jiyong’s face peek in from behind the door.

“Yeah… but I had something I needed to talk to you about,” he said, entering the room and shutting the door behind him.

“Of course, take a seat,” Dr. Lopez replied, gesturing at the patient’s couch in front of him.

Jiyong eased himself down onto the black, leather surface, and he noticed his fingers, damp with perspiration, leaving light marks on the edge of the seat.

“I want to try hypnosis,” he blurted, deciding to get the words out before he could stop himself.

Dr. Lopez looked at him curiously. “I thought we agreed, quite some time ago, that hypnosis really isn’t the best course of action for someone suffering from retrograde amnesia. As I have said before, the mind isn’t an open book for us to read as and when we feel like it. I could hypnotize you, but there is no guarantee that what you recall will actually be the memories you are searching for. I have also mentioned this, but I will say so again, because you seem to have forgotten: the brain often forgets traumatic memories precisely because they are traumatic–it’s a process that helps us cope with living. Survivors with post traumatic stress disorder, for an example, cannot forget such moments and this brings them stress and anxiety that prevents them from living life fully,” he said slowly. “Your life at present is important as well and it would not be… prudent for us to forsake this for something that has already passed,” he continued, looking at Jiyong, not unkindly.

“But it’s too late for that. Some thing’s come back,” Jiyong mumbled, not looking at Dr. Lopez in the eyes.

“Is it the stage?”, he asked. Jiyong could hear the silent “again”, which Dr. Lopez had been kind enough not to tack on at the end of his question.

“No… it’s something… else this time.”

“Would you like to tell me more about that?”

And so Jiyong began telling Dr. Lopez about his memories of shooting of “Run, BIGBANG, Scout!” as well as about the room and how he had felt when he was dreaming. With no way of knowing, however, if Dr. Lopez was somehow in cahoots with his family, he decided not to tell Dr. Lopez about his findings–that he was Kwon Jiyong, and that the person in his memories was Choi Seunghyun. He had also conveniently left out his suspicions that this person could very well be dead.

“And who do you think that person is?” Dr. Lopez asked simply.

“I don’t know,” came Jiyong’s reply.

“Not even a guess?” he prompted.

“I have no  _clue_  who he is,” Jiyong said, trying hard to sound convincing. He made sure to look at Lopez straight in the eyes.

Dr. Lopez, who seemed to sense that he was hiding something, did not respond. He waited, looking calmly and steadily at Jiyong, and when neither had spoken for a good few minutes, let out a soft sigh.

“It seems you don’t trust me as much as you used to,” Dr. Lopez said, a sad smile on his face. _How does he know this? Can these people actually read minds?_ Jiyong wondered. And to Jiyong’s astonishment, he continued, “And perhaps you have good reason not to. I have not been completely honest with you.”

“W-what do you mean?” he asked, confusion etching lines in his forehead. He was right not to have trusted Dr. Lopez after all!

“You are a young man and you still have a great deal of your life ahead of you. I was hoping to help you move on, but it seems like that may have been a mistake. Perhaps it is necessary for you to cope with this past, even if you cannot remember it yet, before you are able to move on,” Dr. Lopez murmured.

“What does that mean? Was it the hypnosis you were lying about? Will you hypnotize me then?” The idea of undergoing hypnotherapy had been Janghyun’s and Jiyong was surprised by his own desire.

“No, I stand by what I said about hypnotherapy. But there is something else that I have been wondering whether to tell you about your past. When you never mentioned it in our sessions, I assumed your parents had not told you about it either. You see, when you first started coming to see me after you had come out of your coma, I asked your parents for your medical records. It’s standard procedure. Your records, they show that you had a drug problem.”

Jiyong wasn’t completely surprised. Some of the articles that he had read in his search that afternoon had alleged that the disbandment may have had to do with drugs. Many netizens had found the theory convincing, largely because both Seunghyun  _hyung_  and he had been involved in drug scandals.

“I’m mentioning this now because it seems like your last… dream—we don’t yet know that this is a memory—may have come from when you were in a drug-induced state. Or perhaps coming off of the high,” Dr. Lopez added. “I think you need to speak to your family about this, Mangyong. There seems to be some unresolved tension in your past that needs working on. In any case, time’s up for today. I’ll ask my secretary to put your name down for a visit again on Thursday, if you like.”

Slightly disappointed by Dr. Lopez’s response, Jiyong shook his head. “I need some time to work this out. I-I’ll give you a call to schedule the next appointment when I’ve spoken to my parents,” he said, rising to leave before Dr. Lopez could say another word.

* * *

 Upon leaving Dr. Lopez’s office, Jiyong immediately sent a message to Janghyun. 

“Session ended no hypnotising but dr told me I used to do drugs”.

Within five minutes came the reply, “What kind of drugs”.

“Didn’t say. Told me I have to talk to my family”.

There was a pause before Janghyun finally replied, saying, “Think I got a solution for you. Wanna meet tonight? I’m free after 9”.

Jiyong was not sure what kind of solution Janghyun had in mind, but he had no intention to talk to his family, so Janghyun’s suggestion, vague as it was, seemed like a better idea.

“Ok where?”

“My place? And lets make it 10”

“Address?”

Two minutes later, Janghyun had sent him a link on Google Maps for his residence and Jiyong realized that it wasn’t a mere fifteen minute walk from his place. He decided that he would go home for dinner, just like he had told his sister he would, and then head over to Janghyun’s place when it was almost 10.

At 9 45 pm, when Jiyong made to leave the house, his sister, who was reading a book on the couch in the living room, looked up in surprise.

“Where are you going at this time of night?”

“Out to a friend’s place.”

“Oh… a friend? Where did you meet this person?”

“In my beginner’s Korean class. I’m taking beginner’s Korean now, 10 am everyday… to re-learn my native language you know?”

“Oh… you’re doing a lot of things recently huh.”

“Yeah, I figured it’s time for me to stop dwelling on my memories and to start moving on.”

For the first time in awhile, Kwon Dami smiled at her younger brother with what seemed like genuine happiness.

Following the directions given on his phone, Jiyong walked towards Janghyun’s house. He arrived at a mansion that matched his in size and was about to ring on the doorbell when he realized that he had no idea if Janghyun’s parents were home, or what to say to them if they were. Instead, he sent Janghyun a text and watched as the porch light came on and Janghyun’s grinning face popped out from behind the glass paneled front doors a second later.

“Come on in!” Janghyun said, unbolting the front gate, stepping aside to let Jiyong enter. “My parents aren’t in, they’ve probably gone off to attend a dinner somewhere,” he explained as the two of them stepped into the darkness of the house. “It’s this way to my room,” he added, pointing to the left when they had ascended the staircase and reached the second landing. Jiyong could see the soft glow of light coming from the room at the end of the corridor.

Janghyun’s room was decently-sized, slightly smaller than Jiyong’s, with white walls and a queen-sized bed and a cream-colored carpet taking up most of the space in the middle. The sheets were a navy blue and the bed frame made of some kind of dark wood. Jiyong noticed how the beside tables, wardrobe and desk matched the bed frame in color.

“Sit, sit,” Janghyun said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the burgundy-colored two-person couch that had been placed at the end of the bed.

Jiyong sat. Janghyun pulled the swivel desk chair towards him and sat down backwards, crossing his arms and placing them on the top of the backrest. 

“So… what’s this solution you have?” Jiyong asked, looking expectantly at him. 

Janghyun, who had typically been quick with his words, did not reply Jiyong’s question immediately. He looked, instead, towards the bedroom door and after a moment’s thought, got up, walked across the room and shut it with a ‘click’ before returning to his swivel chair. This time, he sat properly on it, and began after a short pause, “It’s going to sound insane, but I hope you’ll hear me out.”

“O…kay?” Jiyong, who was once again struck by how few choices he actually had, did not see what reason he had not to listen to the younger man.

“You know how I travel around so much right?”

Jiyong nodded.

“This means I spend a lot of time on planes and I’m a bit of a knowledge junkie so I read a lot.”

“And…?” Jiyong prompted, when Janghyun seemed a little hesitant to continue.

“I like reading pop science and pop psychology–which was where I got the hypnotherapy idea, by the way–and the same article that talked about amnesia also mentioned a few other methods that help people retrieve their memories.”

“So what is it that you want me to try? Some kind of new medication? Lopez said there isn’t anything like that,” he replied, realizing how much he actually did trust Dr. Lopez, even if the man had been of ridiculously little use in helping him recover his memories.

“Uh well, not medication–this doesn’t count as medication I think. The article said that some of those with retrograde amnesia actually find that they remember some things when they’re… faced with the same stimulus from the incident they forgot.”

“What does that even mean?” Jiyong asked, frowning as he tried to make sense of Janghyun’s words.

“Mm… for an example, a person who may have been sexually abused as a child forgets this abuse only to remember it when they have their first sexual experience as a teenager. When their partner touches them for the first time, for example.”

“Alright… Do you want me to go back to Korea or something? Run around the parks? Go visit places I used to perform at? Look, I don’t really understand any of this. And what you’ve said is just making me even more confused. Just tell me what you want me to try.”

“I want you to–I think you should try MDMA,” he said finally.

“MDMA? What’s that?”

“It’s a… type of drug.” Janghyun replied, the hesitation in his words evident.

“I just told you–whatever drug this is, it probably doesn’t work. Lopez told me at the beginning of my treatment that there are no drugs that help with memory recall,” Jiyong replied, trying hard not to raise his voice.

“This isn’t that type of drug…” he responded, letting the thought sink in. When he saw Jiyong’s eyes flicker with comprehension, he added, “it’s what people call Ecstasy. When you told me about the drugs, I did a search and there’s lots of stuff about you taking marijuana and Molly. I don’t think you need to ask your family about this one.”

“But how is this supposed to  _help_  me? I’m trying to retrieve my old memories not become my old self! And even if I  _were_  trying to become my old self, I doubt drugs would be the best way to begin!” Jiyong countered, unable to keep his voice in check this time.

“No! Remember what I said about the stimulus? You might get some memories back from when you were taking Molly! Those may not be the most useful memories, but at least you’ll have something! Look, you don’t have to take my suggestion. It’s just that–a suggestion,” he said finally, seeing the unconvinced look on Jiyong’s face.

“… okay, let’s say we do this. I still don’t see why I should be taking Ecstasy. Maybe I did take Ecstasy as well, I have no way of knowing, but wouldn’t marijuana and Molly be better bets, since there’s information suggesting that I used to take those?”

“Ecstasy these days usually comes in a purer form than Molly actually. Both contain the MDMA drug, but cartels have been putting other substances into Molly and some of those can be really harmful. I can see how you might not believe me, but I’m not actually trying to kill you.”

Jiyong considered his words for a moment before saying, “and where would you get this Ecstasy? I don’t suppose you have your own little stash lying around here?”

Janghyun grimaced, got up from his swivel chair and for just a moment Jiyong wondered if Janghyun was going to hit him. Instead Janghyun pulled up one of the burgundy cushions and produced a few small pills in a plastic packet.

“Don’t ask, alright… I’m a college student and I’ve attended quite a few raves so I have my sources,” Janghyun said before Jiyong could even open his mouth to ask. “Just think about it, okay?” he added, dropping the packet of pills into Jiyong’s hands.

In the end, Jiyong left the house before Janghyun’s parents had gotten home. He had stashed the pills into his jacket pocket, taking them with him. The situation had taken a turn in a way he had not expected. While he perhaps had had no qualms taking recreational drugs in his previous life, he was reluctant to start taking them again. Without his memories, he couldn’t remember why he had taken those drugs, but what kind of reasons could a celebrity possibly have? If it hadn’t been for more lofty things like artistic inspiration, it had probably been for pleasure. The drug now seemed to lack a necessary context.

What convinced him in the end was the memory of his afternoon session with Dr. Lopez. Lopez had said that his description of his memories with Seunghyun  _hyung_  had sounded like they came either from when he was under the influence or after that, when he was suffering from the side-effects. So taking these pills wouldn’t just retrieve any memory at random (if it did at all), it stood a chance of helping him remember exactly what had happened in the dark room that day.

He thought about waiting until the next day, of telling Janghyun about his decision after the next day’s Korean class and asking if Janghyun could look after him while he was high. It was somewhat silly, bordering on being overly cautious, but he thought it was better to be safe than sorry. And yet, when he awoke in the middle of the night, bed clothes soaked with perspiration, Seunghyun  _hyung_ ’s pale, waxy face swimming in and out of his vision, all thoughts of care and caution fled his mind. He needed to find out.

His heart thumped against his chest painfully as he slid out of bed. He reached for his jacket, which he had dumped at the foot of his bed when he had arrived home late the previous night, too tired from the day to attend even to his ablutions. His fingers found the packet and he fumbled as he pulled it out and ripped the ziplock open. He shook the upturned packet slightly and the tablets rolled out onto his palm. He noted, for the first time, that they were a light, canary yellow and each one had been imprinted with a smiley face. “If you decide to go ahead with this, take just the one,” Janghyun had said, “they make you feel… euphoric so you might develop a sudden desire to go around hugging things. Just try to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

Jiyong popped the first tablet into his mouth and swallowed.

Nothing happened for a good thirty minutes. By the time he had ingested the tablet, he had calmed down a bit and so he stood up and switched on his desktop, wanting to do more research on Big Bang and on his own identity, when he remembered that his family could be tracking his search history. And so he spent the next thirty minutes playing flash games, and was shooting what must have been his hundredth bubble when he felt a tingle of exhilaration in his belly. He ignored it and continued to aim the cannon on the screen in front of him. Another ten minutes had passed before he realized how  _happy_  he was whenever he managed to hit his desired target.

It occurred to him, at that moment, that he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He had taken this drug to help him remember, but what if he didn’t remember? Was he just supposed to sit here? He smiled to himself. Wasn’t this supposed to be the drug of rave parties? He would put on some music then.

Doing a quick search on YouTube for party music, he picked the first thing that appeared on the list. He turned up the speakers and when the beats began to thump through them in a steady fashion, the thought that he must get a new pair of speakers crossed his mind. _Bass, I need something with better bass_ , he thought, pumping his hands up in the air. For the first time since he had awoken from his coma, he felt the tension in his body drain out, and his limbs began to move in ways that he could not remember them ever having done. He could feel the beats, the melody, everything–in his skin, his flesh, his bones. He was a part of the music and the music a part of him. Was this what it meant to be  _alive_? Being  _alive_  wasn’t so bad… Not having your memories wasn’t so bad… not if he could just keep feeling the music this way!

At some point, he lost track of the song that was playing and lay down on the floor, tired. He realized that although his eyes were wide open, he could only see the blurred shapes of his bedroom door and the coat hanger standing beside it from where he lay. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was lying right beside his bed, and that he ought instead to get on it, but his body did not want to cooperate. His throat felt dry and he needed water, so he pulled himself into a sitting position. When he tried to stand up, however, his left leg gave an involuntary twitch and he found himself stumbling and falling to the floor.

_He was in the dark room again. He had tripped over the legs. Seunghyun hyung’s legs. He reached out to touch hyung’s face… The flesh felt cold against his skin._

A soft whimper escaped his lips. He was back in his room, his hands and knees on the carpeted floor. The flashback had lasted but an instant. His room felt unnaturally warm, and his throat was parched. Slowly dragging himself to the bathroom on his hands and knees, the thought that taking the tablet, especially alone in his room, had been a mistake. Too late to worry about that now. Reaching the bathroom, he pulled himself into upright position, using the sink for support. He almost shouted when he saw the man staring at him, matted black hair strewn across his face, eyes hollow, blue pajama shirt so soaked through that it looked almost black. The man’s jaw was moving, his teeth were grinding, grinding, grinding. Heart slamming palpably against his chest, he raised a hand to his face and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling the strands back from his face until they came to rest behind his ears. The man in the mirror did the same. 

His shoulders relaxed and he turned on the tap, cupping both of his hands underneath the cool, running water. When they were overflowing, he brought them to his lips and drank deeply. He did this over and over again until he felt his thirst quenched and then splashed his face with the water instead, rubbing until his eyes, already bloodshot, looked like he had come out of the scene of a horror movie. His left leg twitched again, and this time he managed to catch himself on the bathroom sink before he fell to the floor.

He steadied himself and when he was quite certain that his legs would not give way on him again, he walked slowly back to his bed, tracing the room’s walls with his right hand, using them for support until he reached his bed. Fatigued, he pulled off every piece of his sweat-soaked clothing and sunk into bed, barely noticing the soft glow of the rising sun from behind the curtains as his eyelids fell shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, he does dream after this.


	5. 집착 | Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend once warned me that some people don't like to read smut. So this is a heads up for all those of you who fall into said category: there's some of it here, just some, not a lot.

_He was in a café, amidst the hustle and bustle, and Seunghyun hyung was sitting across from him. He was aware that he was dreaming._

_“_ 형 _!_ 잘 지냈어 _?”_

_The words rushed out of his mouth, surprising even himself. Part of him, a niggling voice at the back of his mind, was aware of the fact that he no longer spoke Korean. And yet the words had come and he knew, somehow, that he had asked Seunghyun hyung how he had been._

_“_ 형 말이야 _._ 내가 _YG_ 에서 연습생을 하는 것 _,_ 형 알지 _?_ 우리가 _5_ 멤버 필요한데 형도 같이 하면 어때 _?”_

_Seunghyun hyung smiled. Although they had known each other for years, it was the first time he had seen hyung in awhile and his heart sang with a strange joy. Hyung had lost some weight from the last time they had met. Jiyong had always been charmed by his older friend but this was the first time he recognized the feeling for what it was: attraction. It was the first time he knew in his heart, plain as day, that this was whom he wanted—no, whom he needed._

_When the time came to leave, he wanted to reach over, to pull Seunghyun hyung into a hug, but he knew how much hyung did not like physical contact and so he held himself back. Once, it would be nice to have him close just once. But he knew that he had to be patient—if hyung agreed to join him, they would have all the time in the world together._

* * *

_He was sitting in a room alone, his heart racing. They had kissed. The two of them had kissed. It had been short and had only been for a parody video, for their fans, so there was no real meaning to it, was there? It wasn’t real, but his heart was racing. Nothing was real, but his heart was racing._

_Sometimes he regretted asking hyung to join him. Instead of making things better, seeing him, dancing, singing and recording with him every single day had made things worse. It made Jiyong so tired, watching hyung around the female trainees… Sometimes he felt like he was going insane, but when he realized that he was the only one among them who got to watch hyung sleep, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction._

_Sometimes he awoke to hyung watching him, or waking him after he had had a nightmare, and the swoop he felt in his belly was tremendous. There was something there right? There had to be. Hyung’s eyes never lied… If he could be the only one that hyung were ever to look at in this way. He clenched his fist and rose in a fit of frustration. He refused to continue meeting hyung as mere friends. He would confess. He had to confess._

_And yet, he knew he would not._

* * *

_He was in another room. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was the first one he had dreamed about, the one where he had seen Seunghyun hyung supine. But it was not the same scene. This time, it was brighter and he noticed, to his relief, that he was clothed. He was waiting for someone. He knew that that someone was going to arrive soon. This was something that he had been waiting for. He wrung his hands once in anticipation, then he was nibbling on his fingernails, despite the polish. He told himself to stop. It would not do to have his nails bitten down like this today._

_The doorbell rang._

_He opened the room door and found himself walking through the corridor to the front door. His hands found the lock mechanism automatically and he pressed the button, then pushed on the handle and found himself face to face with Seunghyun hyung. This—this was who he had been waiting for._

_Standing in the doorway, he marveled at how much hyung still appealed to him, even though the years had passed and the group had become much more popular with time. Girls would flock to him, if only he would let them… and yet, it was hyung whom he wanted. At one point, he had even hoped that this was merely a passing phase. But no, he knew that now. It was hyung that he needed and no one else._

_“_ 언제까지 형을 기다리게 하는 거야 _?” Seunghyun hyung said, a cheeky grin adorning his face as he side-stepped Jiyong and walked into the house. Jiyong knew that this was his own house–he had come to realize it when he had walked out into the corridor. And the room he had been in was his bedroom. He lived with his family, but they would not be home tonight–these were things he knew without being told, in the way we all know such things in our dreams._

_***_

_Then they were half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, drinking a bottle of Opus One. It was their third bottle. Hyung had brought two over, and this third one had also been a gift from his previous visit. Jiyong picked up the bottle and squinted at the label. The words “2009 Opus One Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon” swam before his vision. This wine was supposed to have an oaky flavor and paired well with classic meat dishes. He remembered hyung mentioning this at some point. As if that mattered when you were this drunk._

_“_ 이거 다 마시고 나가야지 _…” he wasn’t sure which one of them had opened their mouths to say those words._

_***_

_Night had fallen. They were in the car, and the driver was saying something. He had to strain his ears to listen._

_“—_ 정말 괜찮습니까 _?”_

_“_ 네 _?_ 무 _—_ 뭐라고요 _?” he found himself saying._

_“_ 괜찮냐고요 _…”_

_“_ 네 _,_ 네 _…_ 괜찮죠 _.”_

_Truth to be told, he felt a little bit like throwing up. He shut his eyes, and became vaguely aware that hyung was lying on his lap. His skin tingled at the thought. Nausea pushed to the back of his mind, he reached out to trace hyung’s features with the tips of his fingers. His hairline, down to his brow, careful not to press too hard on the eyelids, then to the nose bridge, down to the tip of his nose, making an arc across his cheek, curving back onto the lips, the lips—stained plum, slightly dry from too many bottles of wine, yet still soft—his lips. An inventory of hyung’s face… the perfection that was his face…_

_***_

_They were sitting at the table in the restaurant hyung had picked. A private room. Just the two of them. There was another bottle of red on the table in between them. Jiyong was slightly less drunk now. Hyung looked a little morose, but that was to be expected. He had developed a habit of getting emotional when he was drunk. As for Jiyong, he was with hyung, and so he was alright–more than alright, he was happy. They hadn’t said a single thing to each other since they had arrived at the restaurant, but none of that mattered. He was with his hyung and that was all that mattered._

_***_

_He was keying in the password, pushing the front door open with his shoulder, Seunghyun hyung in tow. Hyung was in much better spirits now, laughing at something Jiyong had said. Some of the alcohol seemed to have worked its way out of his system. Perhaps the night wouldn’t end so badly after all._

_“_ 형 _,_ 춤 출래 _?_ 잠이 안 올 것 같아서 _…”_

_“_ 응 _,_ 춤추자 _.”_

_He knew that meant taking E, because how else did they dance anymore? The years they had spent on stage, dancing in city after city, tour after tour, meant that dancing had largely become a chore otherwise. He led hyung to his room and shut the door behind them. Hyung sat down on his bed, waiting. Jiyong pulled out the beside table so that it no longer stood against the wall, pull out the top drawer and took the pills out from the compartment. He looked at the little capsules, the white crystalline powder sitting within, popped two open and poured the contents out in two straight, parallel lines. Then he rummaged in the drawer, pulled out a slip of note paper, rolled it up and snorted before passing it to hyung for him to do the same._

_He must have put music on at some point, even though he could not remember doing it, because he found himself bopping his head slightly to the beat as he waited for the drug to take effect. Time seemed to dilate._

_***_

_Seunghyun hyung was looking at him in that way again. The next thing Jiyong knew, his arms were around hyung’s neck and their bodies were pressing urgently, desperately against each other. In that moment, hyung was his and he had never been more certain about anything in his life. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to come to that conclusion._

_He leaned closer, brushed his lips against Seunghyun hyung’s soft, wine-stained ones and felt hyung’s lips part slightly. He could smell the red on their warm, wet breaths. He ran his tongue across hyung’s upper lip then felt hyung’s tongue touch his, lightly, tentatively. How he had waited so long for this. His hunger awoken, he kissed harder, pulling hyung tighter, closer to him. For a split second, hyung did not respond and he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he had read hyung’s eyes wrongly, if this wasn’t something the older man wanted too. Then hyung’s hand was fumbling with the buttons on Jiyong’s shirt and when the fabric gave way with the last button, his hand rested gently on Jiyong’s lower abdomen. Tracing his navel, Seunghyun hyung gave a soft chuckle when he noticed the two ‘x’s Jiyong had gotten tattooed over it._

_“_ 이런 상황에 웃기려고 한 거야 _?” hyung murmured, the ghost of a grin still on his face as he spoke, “_ 그래서 난 네가 좋아 _…”_

_Then hyung kissed him again, caressing Jiyong’s skin with the back of his hand until he reached a nipple, circling it with the tip of his index finger then running his thumb across it. When Jiyong was certain that his nipple could not get any harder, hyung pulled away and reached both hands down to Jiyong’s hips and undid his pants, pushing them past his buttocks, then letting them fall to the ground. Jiyong looked down at his silk boxers, barely concealing his now semi-erect penis and wondered if they should not have taken the E after all. There was no way he would get a full-on erection with the drug and all that alcohol in his system. Too late for such thoughts._

_Hyung’s hands ran across the silk, stroking his hard-on before pulling teasingly at the waist band._

_“_ 내 옷을 먼저 벗겨줘 _,” Seunghyun hyung said, his voice barely a whisper over the music. He let go of the waist band and went back to stroking Jiyong’s cock over the fabric, as if disappointed that he couldn’t do more._

_Jiyong bit his lip. Fair was fair. He undid the buttons on hyung’s shirt and hyung removed his hand from Jiyong’s cock to undo his own pants, pulling down his own boxers at one go. Jiyong did the same and then made to push him onto bed, but hyung grabbed his arms and pivoted, so that Jiyong ended up with his back flat across the mattress, with Seunghyun hung crouched on top of him. Jiyong chuckled. There was something about hyung’s controlling manner that appealed to him._

_***_

_One moment he was laughing on his bed and the next he was moaning with a soft ecstasy. All he could see now was the crown of hyung’s head between his thighs, moving slowly up and down, sucking earnestly on the head of his cock. God, his tongue… When hyung paused, he jerked his hips forward, almost involuntarily. Hyung looked up at him with a smirk, “_ 우리 지용이는 성격이 좀 급하네 _.” Jiyong felt his face grow hot._

 _“_ 너 _,_ 표정이 너무 귀엽다 _…” Seunghyun hyung murmured, leaning over to kiss Jiyong’s open mouth._

 _“_ 애널 해 본 적 없지 _?” hyung asked, his hand now wrapped around Jiyong’s member, this time concentrating his movements on the shaft, occasionally flicking the tip with his thumb. Jiyong could barely keep himself from groaning, and merely nodded in response. Then hyung’s hand slipped from Jiyong’s pulsing cock up to his thigh, pushing Jiyong’s leg up towards his body as hyung leaned himself back onto his knees._

_In the absence of Seunghyun hyung's hand, Jiyong reached down for his own cock, which he realized was surprisingly erect. The ecstasy had less of an effect than he had imagined._

_“_ 어떡해 _?_ 할래 _?” Jiyong could feel Seunghyun hyung’s thumb running lightly across his asshole, and his sphincter muscle tightened._

_“_ 아 _-_ 안 들어갈 것 같은데 _,_ 형 _” Jiyong mumbled, “_ 윤활유같은 거도 없고 _…”_

 _“_ 한 번 해보자 _._ 아프면 그만할게 _.”_

 _“_ 그럼 먼저 샤워나 하면 _…”_

 _“_ 알았어 _._ 근데 샤워 말고 목욕하자 _._ 욕조 있지 _?_ 내가 준비 다 해줄게 _.” Seunghyun hyung agreed, getting off the bed. Jiyong watched his receding back, and it occurred to him that perhaps he was being too demanding. But these things required preparation, didn’t they?_

_He heard the clink of metal plugging the drain, and then the sound of tap water running. He waited until he could feel the heat of the bath and smell the fragrance of bath salts before he got himself out of bed. Hyung had promised to get everything ready, but Jiyong didn’t want to keep him waiting._

_He was feet away from the bathroom door when he heard a thud, and then a groan._

_Jiyong rushed into the bathroom to find Seunghyun hyung lying crumpled on the floor, his right hand supporting his head as he leaned against the bathtub, “_ 형 _!_ 괜찮아 _?”_

_“_ 응 _,_ 괜찮아 _…” Seunghyun said, wincing slightly, his voice barely audible._

_“_ 왜 _?_ 무슨 일이니 _?”_

 _“_ 아니야 _…_ 그냥 어지러워서 _…_ 잠깐 _…_ 쉴래 _…” Jiyong noticed then that hyung wasn’t just leaning on his hand for support, but that his fingers clutched his head, fingertips white._

_Jiyong reached over and gingerly pulled hyung’s head towards him, cradling his partner's head in his chest. He realized only then, how warm hyung’s body felt against his skin. Was something wrong? Jiyong quickly pulled Seunghyun hyung’s hand away from his head, and ran his fingers across hyung’s skull. He felt a large bump forming, and it seemed to throb beneath his fingers. Hyung must’ve hit his head when he had fallen._

_“_ 형 _,_ 진짜 괜찮아 _?”_

_“_ 응 _.”_

_***_

_He must’ve gotten himself and hyung back to bed at some point, although he could not remember doing so. He only remembered being still high on the E, wanting to do something, anything… so he got up, pulled the comforter off his bed, wrapped himself in it and started shimmying to the music. Hyung, who didn't seem to be in so much pain anymore, watched him for a good few minutes with a wan smile on his face before getting up to join him, unrolling Jiyong halfway from the comforter and throwing the unwound portion around his own shoulders._

_Jiyong was unaware of how much time had passed before the both of them sunk into bed, exhausted. Seunghyun hyung lay down on his side, by the edge of the bed, his own arm a makeshift pillow. Thinking about how uncomfortable that must be, Jiyong reached up for a pillow, lifted hyung’s head up and tucked the pillow underneath it. Then he lay down beside him once again, one arm placed awkwardly on his side, in between the both of them, and the other across Seunghyun hyung’s body, pulling him close._

_He had no idea whether hyung could actually hear him, or whether he had already fallen asleep but he whispered, “_ 형 _,_ 이제 걱정마 _._ 우울하지도 말고 _…_ 내가 형을 평생 지켜줄테니까 _…”_

_***_

_The place was dark. He was lying in bed and the sheets felt soft against his skin. He was naked. He didn’t remember getting naked. He got up, slid off the bed. There was someone else there. Too dark to see. Curtains. Draw the curtains. It was bright, too bright. His head hurt. He was thirsty. Go back to bed. No, there was someone else there._

_He needed water. He turned away from the window, back towards the bed, and saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind it. Someone was lying on the floor on the other side, his body blocked from view. Whose body? A niggling sense told him that he had to find out. He squinted. His head hurt. He stumbled towards the bed. Whose body? He tried to step over the feet, to walk to the other side, but his legs were lead. He tripped, fell. The carpet was rough. He felt it when his palms and knees hit the floor. He had to know. He dragged himself forward. And then he saw the face of the person he called “hyung”, pale and unmoving, and he screamed._

_There was pounding on the door. Loud and insistent. His head hurt. He had to make the pounding stop. He got up, stumbled towards the noise. His hand was on the door handle, jerking, but it wouldn’t open. The lock. He twisted the mechanism, the handle turned and the door swung inwards. She stood there in a black dress, makeup freshly done, a pair of silver earrings dangling from each ear lobe. A pause, and then his sister screamed._

* * *

 When Kwon Jiyong awoke, he was vaguely aware of two things: one, his throat was dry and raw. Two, his face was streaked wet and tears were still rolling down his cheeks. _I'm crying. Why am I crying?_ he wondered. He became aware of a sound, somewhere in the distance, and he realized with a start, that someone was knocking on the door. Wiping away the tears with the back of his hand, he made his way slowly towards the bedroom door. He twisted the door knob and the catch unlocked. A manicured hand pushed the door open and he came face to face with his sister. She stood there in a black dress, makeup freshly done, a pair of silver earrings dangling from each ear lobe. Something clicked into place. Kwon Jiyong tried to hold the tears back but they ran freely, slipping down the smooth terrain of his face, like rain on a glass-paneled window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what possessed me to write all of the dialogue in Korean, but it just felt more... realistic that way, because I've always imagined them speaking to each other in Korean. I've run a few lines through Google translate, and they come out alright, if a little different from what I intended but mostly, you should be able to guess what everything means from the context and the descriptors before and after.
> 
> I thought about translating the dialogue bits to English--English is my mother tongue after all--but it feels wrong on the tongue (or maybe I'm just doing a bad job of it in my head). Anyway, if people do request it, I'll put up a (probably rather lousy) translation of it. Also, if you're Korean, and you can think of a better, more natural way of saying those things, do drop me a line too. (:


	6. 시작과 끝 | A Beginning and an End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic scene of self-harm in this one.

He sat on the soft plush suite class seat of an Airbus A-380, his black shoulder-length hair pulled back in a short ponytail. When he had closed the partition and was sure that he wasn’t in a position to be recognized by anyone who mattered, Kwon Jiyong unhooked the black mask from his ears, placing it on the table beside his armrest. The ticket had been ridiculously expensive, but privacy was key, and he would’ve paid another few thousand dollars if it meant that he could make a trip back to South Korea without drawing media attention.

His name had been changed officially, so his passport said “Kim Mangyong”, which meant that he had passed through customs without so much as the custom’s officer looking at him to confirm that his face matched the one shown in the passport.

He sighed, crossed one leg over the other, and switched on the in-flight entertainment system, flipping idly through the movie selection. Thirty more minutes before the plane was due for take-off and twelve more hours before it would arrive at Incheon airport. He had only been seated for ten minutes but his limbs already felt stiff. He wondered how he had flown so frequently back when he was still in Big Bang.

Unfortunately, ever since his episode with Ecstasy, thinking about Big Bang almost inevitably led to thinking about Seunghyun _hyung_ , which sometimes (although markedly less frequently these days) led to panic attacks where he hyperventilated for a good few minutes. Dr. Lopez had been helping him learn to cope with this in their weekly sessions and he was now able to stave off some of these attacks using the relaxation techniques he had learnt. Lopez had also prescribed him medication in the beginning, but Jiyong was doing so well now that the doctor had decreased his dosage just two weeks ago. Jiyong could feel his his heartbeat quicken and so he practiced what he had learnt. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, focusing on his surroundings rather than his thoughts, counting out the number of silver buttons he could see, identifying three sounds he could hear and five surfaces with different materials that were within his reach until the moment had passed. And when it did, he marveled at how far he had come since that day. 

It had been two months since his sister had found him lying in the bathtub, his wrists sliced open with the razor he normally used for shaving. It was then, when he was lying in the hospital, refusing to eat or to speak to anyone that his family had finally decided to tell him the truth about his past. One week prior to his suicide attempt, his sister had come knocking on the door, wondering why he was not yet up for his Korean class when she had opened the door to find him standing stark naked, sobbing. Ignoring her bewilderment, he had asked her, point blank, about the dreams he had had–no, about the memories that had come back to him–about what she had seen in his bedroom back in Seoul, about what had happened to Seunghyun hyung, about his true identity as Kwon Jiyong. She had denied knowledge of everything he had spoken about and had insisted that he had merely been dreaming.

When he had finally calmed down, he began to listen to her, and wondered, in a moment of folly, what if he were to pretend that she were right? He could move on. He could set up a new life for himself in Gibraltar and everyone would be none the wiser. And so he tried. He wiped off his tears, washed himself up, sent himself off to Korean class, learnt how to ask questions politely in between flashes of Seunghyun hyung’s face, which presented themselves in a sort of rolling triptych: in the café, in the car, in his bedroom, in the café, in the car, in his bedroom. That night, he had taken some more Anarex, hoping that it would send him off into a sleep so deep he could not dream. But the memories returned to him nonetheless and he woke up groggy in the darkness, engulfed by a blanket of despair that he could not throw off.

Janghyun had pestered him about the Ecstasy, asking if he had decided to take it and if he had recalled anything. While it was easy enough to lie in his answers at first, he found that he could not look Janghyun in the eyes. As the week drew on, he began to dread even being in the same room as the younger man, for he saw a similar face every night in his dreams and he fought down a strange mixture of lust, longing and fear whenever he saw the younger man.

His attempt at suicide had not been planned. The idea had simply come to him as he lay in the bathtub that Sunday night. It had almost been a week, but the dreams had not let up, and neither had his feelings for Janghyun. He was no closer to finding out the truth about himself or his family and there was no point in trying—no one seemed to want him to know. Except Janghyun. But Jiyong was afraid, truly afraid of what the younger man would think if he found out about the memories—if he knew what Jiyong and his _hyung_ had been up to. He now knew how silly it was for him to have thought that way and yet, in that moment, he had decided that he truly had nothing to lose.

The rest had been easy—the equipment was readily available in the drawer beneath his sink and the bathtub was already filled. When he slid the razor out and held it between his left thumb and index finger, he found that he had no fear of the blade. When he made the first cut, the sweet sharpness of the pain had made him gasp and he realized that he had been living the past week buried in a numbness that even he had not been aware of. The pain felt refreshing, it forced the unwelcome thoughts out of his mind and made him feel… alive. Even in his despondence, the irony was not lost on him. But still, he sliced two, three, four, five times, each cut deeper than the one before. He did not know when he passed out, but his sister had, thankfully, found him in the sea of red and so he had begun his journey at recovery.

* * *

Jiyong awoke in a state of confusion, not knowing where he was or what had roused him until he heard a rumble and felt himself being jerked violently upwards. His heart stopped. Only to pound fiercely against his chest again when he experienced the sudden drop that came mere seconds after. _This is purgatory and I am finally being punished for my sins._ “We are currently experiencing turbulence due to some bad weather. Please put on your seat belts for you own safety,” the announcement came from the overhead speakers, and when Jiyong finally processed the information, he found that he did not quite know which version of events he preferred.

Since it appeared that he was still alive, he fumbled for the seat belt, snapped it in place and checked the in-flight entertainment system: an estimated six hours of flight time left. He must have fallen asleep watching the movie. The nearer he got to his destination, the more nervous he began to feel. He was due to arrive early in the morning. His sister had planned for this when she had bought the tickets, in the hope that he would be able to avoid the prying eyes of busybodies. A chauffeur would be there to pick him up and would be driving him to Youngbae’s new residence. It was also his sister who had helped him get in touch with his ex-colleague and childhood friend.

When he had been lying in the hospital, thin, ragged and hooked up to a glucose IV, it was his sister who had cracked first. After spending thirty minutes arguing with him (or with herself, more accurately, since he refused to speak), trying to make him “see sense”, she had burst into tears and told him that she would tell him anything he wanted to know, as long as he would just  _eat_. And so he had asked about Kwon Jiyong and about Big Bang, and she had finally admitted the truth.

To his parents’ visible consternation, he had then asked about Seunghyun _hyung_ , and they had wanted her to stop, telling her that this could wait until he was discharged from the hospital. But he pushed away the porridge he had taken a few spoonfuls of while listening to her, and adamantly refused to eat until she told him, “He was unconscious when—when you found him that day. We sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. The doctor said he suffered from blunt force trauma to the head that led to internal bleeding, which unfortunately, wasn’t detected earlier.” When Jiyong’s heart did not sink as much as he had expected it to, he realized that this was something he had known without having been told.

_Blunt force trauma, internal bleeding…_ he knew these words seldom portended good things. There was something he had to know for sure, but he swallowed mouthful after mouthful of porridge as his family looked on without a word, until the curiosity burned so strong in him that he blurted, “Is he dead?”

Fully expecting her to confirm his suspicions, his eyebrows rose in surprise when she hesitated, almost whispering, “We… we don’t know.”

“What do you mean you _don’t know_?” a flash of anger seared his features, “I thought we were beyond this, _noona_! Why do you keep trying to hide things from me!”

“No, Jiyong, we really don’t know, I swear. He was in the ICU for a few days, but once his condition stabilized, they moved him.”

“Where to?” he demanded, his knuckles white from clutching the blankets in distress.

“I—we—I don’t know Jiyong. I’m really sorry, but _I don’t know_. They—his parents—they moved him somewhere else, to another hospital, I think. In the middle of the night. And they didn’t tell us.”

“And you didn’t ask?” although he could already guess the answer to his question, his voice was still accusing. He was furious—furious that all this had happened, that his past self had been unable to stop it, and that somehow, he had managed to forget almost every single detail. _This is your fault. He hit his head because of_ _you_ , the small voice in his head whispered. He was guilty. He needed someone to blame, and his sister, in her abject pity for him, made for an easy target.

“지용아, 그만해… 누나도 힘드니까…” it was his father’s voice, soft but firm, and a hand on his shoulder that made him see the damage he was doing to his sister. For once, he found that despite not comprehending the words themselves, he understood everything his father had said. Dami’s face, once full, now resembled his: pasty, gaunt and with distinct dark circles carved out underneath the eyes.

“And this is why Big Bang broke up?” he asked, changing the subject. He would not ask about _hyung_ for now, but there were still too many things that he did not know for him to stop questioning her completely.

“A-after what happened, we… didn’t want this to blow up… any more than it needed to be. So we convinced you to get CEO Yang Hyun Suk to announce a disbandment.”

“And he actually _agreed_?” Jiyong's tone, an octave higher than it usually was, was one of incredulity.

The tension in Dami's shoulders, which had eased when Jiyong had stopped asking about Seunghyun, returned. “The man could see that nothing good was in store for Big Bang or YG Entertainment if it blew up and the truth got out. Two of his biggest artistes embroiled in a scandal—you refused to disavow yourself—with each other at that, one of the two indisposed until further notice. If you guys disbanded then, there would still be the remaining album and merchandise sales that he could cash in on. In other words, his hands were tied.”

“What about the rest of the members? Do they know about what happened? How did they agree to this arrangement?”

“Yes, they found out, of course. Even without Big Bang, they wanted to continue as celebrities in their own right, or at the very least, live their regular lives. But if everyone else appeared and started doing their own thing, and Seunghyun was the only one who didn’t, the public would get suspicious. So you paid them off,” Dami explained tersely.

“I did… what?” Jiyong could not believe his own ears. Part of him wondered if Dami simply wanted to make him feel guilty at every turn, just so he would stop asking uncomfortable questions.

“Okay, it wasn’t that simple. You paid for all of them, and their families, to get new identities. But it’s not as if they didn’t have the money to do that themselves. You spent a long time convincing them, and it wouldn’t have worked if you guys hadn’t spent so much time together as Big Bang for so many years and hadn’t established such a strong bond. Of course, they still have their own businesses, not under their names naturally, but they do continue earn money through those. They just don’t do entertainment anymore.”

Everything had started to make sense then, and it felt to Jiyong like all of the little pieces had begun to fall into place. They sat there, in silence once more, Jiyong stirring round and round at the remainder of his porridge.

“But… I still don’t understand how I came to get amnesia,” he said finally, spooning what was left of the then cold porridge into his mouth.

“Right… I’d thought that would’ve been the first thing you asked about. Anyway, that  _was_  actually from a car crash. You were always restless and so, unlike the other Big Bang members, you moved around every few months and we went with you whenever you did. Before we last moved, you said that you wanted to find a place where you weren’t likely to be recognized, where you could move about more freely. And so we came here, to Gibraltar. One day, you took the Lamborghini out for a spin and you crashed along Winston Churchill Avenue, hitting your head really hard. You stayed in a coma for a long while; we had no idea if and when you would even wake up. And when you eventually did and we realized that you had gotten amnesia, and couldn’t remember anything very much, we decided that it was best to spare you. You never were the same after the… incident and we really  _did_  hope that you would move on.”

When Jiyong had decided to force his family into telling him the truth, he had thought that knowing all of these things would somehow help him move on. But night after night he had continued to dream of Seunghyun _hyung_. They were performing together, running around filming variety shows together, having dinner together and sometimes, when he had been having a good day, when he’d least expect it, there they would be, together in bed again. On those nights, he would wake up crying in earnest, as if the tears could somehow wash the guilt and sorrow away.

It was a week after he had been discharged that he had finally admitted to Dr. Lopez that he was still having these dreams. He no longer knew, almost no longer cared, whether the dreams were fragments of memory, or whether they had been made up by his subconsciousness. But sometimes, when he was searching up an old Big Bang video, or watching them on a variety show, he noticed scenes that he remembered from his dreams and realized that some, if not all of his dreams, must be composed of memory. When he told Lopez all of this, Lopez had suggested that when he was ready, he might want to go back to Korea, to “get in touch” with his past in order to “find closure”. He had rejected this idea at first, certain that the more he remembered, the more he would be prompted to take his own life again. But after a month had gone by and he had regained a measure of mental normalcy, curiosity had gotten the better of him. So his sister had spoken to Youngbae on his behalf, and asked if he could visit.

* * *

When he touched down at the airport, Jiyong switched his cellphone on and connected to the Wi-Fi network. Immediately, his phone buzzed and he saw several messages flash across the screen. He knew who they were from without having to check.

“Have a good trip, alright? I’ll be waiting for you when you return! Text me when you’ve touched down xoxo” Jiyong had to bite his lip to keep himself from smiling.

After he had been hospitalized, Jiyong had stopped showing up to Korean classes and had not thought much about his absence. So it was to his surprise when, after his discharge, he found several messages from Janghyun asking after him. He had not replied at first but Dr. Lopez had begun suggesting that he make new friends as part of his effort to recover. If he was to lead a normal life, he had to begin somewhere and he realized that he really did quite want to see Janghyun after all. And so he had sent a reply message, explaining the complicatedness of his situation, leaving out the part where he had tried to kill himself, but explaining that some of his memories had indeed come back to him.

Several text exchanges and a few meals later, Janghyun had suggested that they go for an evening hike on The Rock together, because he had been in Gibraltar for a month and had yet to check the place out. Although Jiyong’s physical condition left much to be desired, he had thought that doing more of such activities might tire him out and make sleep come more easily. So on a Sunday evening, they had set out to climb the promontory together.

“You know, this rock is really old. They say that some of it is from the Early Jurassic period. Scientists have even found marine fossils in this area,” Janghyun mused, bending over to pick a small rock on the pathway, “you think this could be another one of them?” He turned around, presenting the rock to Jiyong in his open palm, grinning brightly and teasingly at him.

“That’s probably just a rock,” Jiyong replied flatly. His mood had been volatile of late and largely depended on the manner in which Seunghyun _hyung_ appeared in his dreams.

Janghyun exhaled slowly, taking a few tentative steps up the path before saying, “You… seem a lot more troubled lately…”

“Says the person who hasn’t lost half of his memories,” Jiyong’s voice was thick with sarcasm and he wanted to retract his words the moment he had said them.

“… and also irascible…” Janghyun murmured, looking out towards the blue sea below them, “maybe… maybe this was a bad idea. We don’t have to go all the way to the viewing gallery. It’s a nice day and I just thought you’d like it…” When Jiyong did not respond immediately, he continued, walking hesitantly up the path at the same time, “You know, there’s something I've wanted to apologize for actually… I shouldn’t have asked you to… take the Ecstasy… You were still recovering from the car crash… and your coma… and… I dunno… I guess I got a bit overexcited…” 

Following closely behind him, Jiyong took a deep breath and said softly, “It really isn’t your fault. Things just haven’t been going so great recently. I spend most of my days feeling horribly confused because I still... dream of him a lot... and I wish… I wish I didn’t have to question everything… and everyone… especially my family… And that I could… take my dreams for what they were… and not wonder if they’re part of my memory.”

Then, the two men walked side by side in silence, gazing out across the greenery that covered the landscape in swathes. There seemed something thrilling about strolling up a path that dropped off onto a rocky limestone cliff on both sides. Jiyong did not believe that he was in any real danger of falling off, and yet, there was the unspoken fact that should he feel like it, he could simply… slip off the edge into oblivion.

By the time they arrived at the viewing gallery, the streaky cirrus clouds were tinted peach and the sun was hanging like a huge distant fireball in the sky. Jiyong leaned over the black railings, pushing himself up on his elbows so that his feet came off the ground for a second. He dangled them, kicking them back and forth, feeling the liberating sensation of weightlessness in this lower body, laughing like a toddler. He did not know—could not remember—when he had last felt this free or seen a view like this one. The sun burned a deep vermilion in the horizon but if he looked far enough, he noticed, the orange faded out into a soft powder blue. The sunset sky was magnificent. It seemed like the kind of view that one would never get sick of. Yet the longer he looked at the burning star, the more his heart ached.

Janghyun, who had taken a short walk around the platform, stopped and leaned on the railings next to him, “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Jiyong turned his head around to look at him and found himself admiring the way Janghyun’s face reflected the soft glow of the sunlight. The ache in his heart intensified and he croaked, “Hyun… why?”

Still looking out into the dusk, not appearing to notice his distress, Janghyun simply asked, “Hmm? Why what?”

“Why are you… helping me? Why do you continue to text me, to spend time with me, even though everything about me is so fucked up? Who… am I… to you?” Jiyong’s voice had a desperate edge to it. His hands, which he had held freely above the railings before, were now clasped tightly together. Every moment that passed without Janghyun’s response seemed to nudge him slightly closer to the verge of madness.

Finally, Janghyun turned to face him and mumbled, “Honestly, Yong… I don’t… know. I’ve… travelled around a lot since I was a child and… you would think I’d have experienced a lot of things, but it’s always same old, same old. Go to a new school, make new friends knowing you’re going to have to leave in a few months, actually leave, head off to a new place, rinse and repeat… But this is new. This feels… real. It’s exhilarating, being with you. It’s… it’s kinda like being in a real life mystery... Is that... okay? And I know it’s your _life_ that I’m talking about here... and I’m being stupid and an asshole and I’m rambling but… I guess… I think… what I’m trying to say is… I kind of… really like you, you know?”

Perhaps Janghyun would have said more, would have tried harder to give Jiyong an explanation for the unexplainable if Jiyong had not reached over and pulled him into a kiss. It was short and sweet, but Jiyong had felt Janghyun’s lips part, inviting him in. And when they had come apart, he heard in the distance whooping cheers, and someone shouting, “Good on you!” It was a clear October evening on The Rock, four months since Jiyong had come out of his coma and barely a month since he had started finding out the truth about his past. But it was the first time, as far back as he could remember, that Jiyong felt the dull, gnawing loneliness in his heart give way to a seed of something else. Later on, he would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and wonder if that was what hope felt like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh, I have a lot of things I want to say. Part of me feels a necessity to explain myself for the choices that I made in writing this chapter (and the subsequent ones, since they all affect each other), but then I realized that maybe too much explanation isn't a good thing either. So I'll let you all make of this what you will.


	7. 돌이킬 수 없는 것

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A note on the title]
> 
> 돌이키다: verb  
> 1\. to look back (on); to reflect (on)  
> 2\. to undo  
> 3\. to change (one's mind)
> 
> \- Naver dictionary

Before collecting his luggage, Jiyong quickly typed a reply message to Janghyun, confirming his arrival and telling the younger man not to worry. When Janghyun had learnt that Jiyong would be returning to Korea for a visit, he had offered to tag along. Jiyong had been enthusiastic about the idea, not least because it meant that he would have emotional support if things got difficult. Janghyun was still working in his part-time job as service staff, but it was hardly a difficult job to give up. After much discussion, however, they had eventually decided that it would be best if Jiyong went alone. While Jiyong was somewhat thinner and still rather sickly due to his general lack of well-being over the past few months, Janghyun continued to look like a younger, slightly tanner version of Seunghyun and the two of them together would be unlikely to pass under the paparazzi’s radar. Since it was not Jiyong’s intention to stage a comeback to the Korean popular music scene, they had decided that being seen together was something they ought to avoid, especially in Korea.

The fact that Jiyong intended to stay with Youngbae and to have him act as a tour guide also made Janghyun’s presence more problematic. While Dami had contacted Youngbae on Jiyong’s behalf, she had refused to tell Youngbae too much about Jiyong’s condition, saying that Youngbae needed to see him in the flesh and to speak to him to fully comprehend the situation. Both Janghyun and Jiyong felt that the younger man’s presence would certainly complicate any explanation. They had had most of this conversation while Jiyong lay in the warm comfort of Janghyun’s arms, and Jiyong had thought even then that perhaps the two of them were being too rational. Now, standing with his luggage in one hand, at an airport that he had been to hundreds of times before and yet was completely unfamiliar with, Jiyong realized how much he wanted Janghyun beside him.

Pausing every once in awhile to read the signs, he ambled towards exit 3C, for personal vehicles. As he stepped out into the arrival hall, his grip on the handle of his luggage tightened. He had seen videos of when fans used to throng around him, grabbing at his sleeves, leaning across the makeshift barricades to take photographs or selfies as he walked past. But if he had had his hopes up, he would certainly have been disappointed. He had put his mask on just to be safe, but the area was quiet and he doubted that the few stragglers present would have recognized him even if they had seen his full face. At exit 3C, he found a chauffeur waiting for him, just as his sister had instructed. 

The car was a black sedan, with tinted windows. They drove for longer than Jiyong’s buttocks, already stiff from the flight, would have liked. He didn’t know how long the ride from Incheon to central Seoul was, but when he had passed more fields, rivers and apartments than he cared to count and watched the sunrise from his backseat window and the hands on his watch tick past the two hour mark, the thought that Youngbae perhaps no longer lived in Seoul crossed his mind. But the fact that he was in foreign territory did not sink in until he thought to ask the driver where they were going and when they would arrive. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized that the chauffeur probably did not speak English while he could barely string a sentence together in Korean. He was well and truly back in his motherland. Unfortunately, unlike the memories, his language ability still had not come back to him. If he had continued with the Korean lessons, he might have learnt how to construct longer sentences but his suicide attempt had derailed his study and he had not found it in himself to begin again.

Lost in thought, he did not realize when the driver pulled up at a modest-sized freestanding house with bone white walls. It was only when Youngbae pulled open the back door and a rush of cool air hit his exposed skin that he registered the fact that he had arrived at his destination. 

“ 지용아 !  오랜만이네 …  아 …  맞다 ! Hey! How’ve you been?” Youngbae greeted him, realizing his mistake and quickly switching to English. So Dami had informed him of that much… What a relief. Jiyong smiled awkwardly and took a few tentative steps towards the trunk to retrieve his luggage.

“You wanna wash up? Must’ve been a long ride,” Youngbae asked. Coming up from behind Jiyong, he lifted Jiyong’s luggage out from the trunk and clapped him on the shoulder. Jiyong tensed. Instinct told him to shrug the hand off—it felt alien to him. He recognized Youngbae not from memory, and only from the photographs he had seen online. But he fought the instinct, letting the hand stay where it was and even allowing himself to be pulled into a brief hug before his old friend guided him into the house.

Youngbae led him to the first room along the corridor—a guest room—with peach colored walls and a king-sized bed fitted snugly into a corner. Jiyong would have liked to take a look at the entire place, but Youngbae seemed to think that he would prefer rest, and he did not argue. The guest room had its own bathroom attached and Youngbae had provided him with all the necessities—toiletries, towels and the like. So when Jiyong’s stomach growled audibly and his old friend laughed and told him that he would go cook something up, the tired and aching thirty-one year old stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself raw with the wash towel, letting the soap suds and hot water wash the tension away. 

Hair soaked and flattened against his skull, water dripping from every possible surface, he wrapped himself up in a fluffy white towel he had found hanging over a handle by the sink, cursing himself for having forgotten to bring his clothes into the bathroom with him. Although he had dried himself as best he could, the air was frigid against his still-moist skin and Jiyong shivered as he rummaged through his luggage, wondering if it was possible for one’s body to forget how to deal with the cold.

Not knowing if he ought to present himself at the kitchen, or if he would just get in Youngbae’s way, he settled for drying his hair and connecting to the WiFi network. Youngbae had so kindly provided him with the password earlier on. It was shortly before nine, which meant that it would be two in the morning in Gibraltar. Janghyun would most likely be asleep but Jiyong decided to send him a message anyway.

“Arrived at Youngbae’s house. Been pretty weird so far. I’m supposed to have lived in this country most of my life, but everything feels new and strange.”

Jiyong waited, but when Janghyun did not read his message, decided that perhaps he ought to get some sleep too. He had settled himself in between the impeccably starched sheets and was drifting off to sleep, when he heard a knock on the door and an unfamiliar voice calling out to him, “지용아~ 아침 먹어~” Who was that telling him to have breakfast? He was quite sure that the voice belonged to a female. He threw the bed covers off and slid out of bed. 

By the time he had cracked opened the door to take a look, the person was no longer there. He took a sniff and recognized the scent of kimchi stew in the air. Following his nose and the clinking of utensils, he found himself in the dining area, where he saw to his confusion, Youngbae standing with a woman that he had never seen before. Busy laying out the table, neither of them noticed him step into the room. He gave an awkward cough. Both Youngbae and the woman looked up.

Youngbae smiled, “You’re here! Sit, sit!” He gestured towards the spoon and chopstick set closest to Jiyong.

Jiyong sat. He waited until the stranger had left the table, then said, “I should probably know this, but… who is she?”

Youngbae blinked uncertainly, “Who is…  누구냐고 ?” His forehead creased in a frown.

Jiyong, who had recognized the Korean interrogative for “who”, nodded. “I really should know this right? But with my amnesia, I… can’t remember. Is she your girlfriend? When did you two start dating?” the words left Jiyong’s mouth in a rush and he squinted slightly, trying hard to recall the articles he had read about Big Bang members and who they were dating.

“… That was Hyorin. You remember her…?” When Jiyong showed no sign of recollection, he added, “We started dating a long time ago. When we were all still in Big Bang.”

“Hy-hyorin… That sounds familiar…” Jiyong gave Youngbae a watery smile, trying to hide his ignorance.

“We got married shortly after the disbandment… You were there for the wedding… as my best man…” Youngbae said slowly.

“I-I was!” Jiyong could hardly keep the astonishment from his voice. He was thankful when the conversation was brought to an end by Hyorin’s re-entry. Both her hands were full with a large pot of kimchi stew and Youngbae made to help her with it.

As she ladled out bowls of kimchi stew, and Youngbae went into the kitchen to get some rice, Jiyong propped his elbows on the table, rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and kneaded at his eyes with a yawn. If only his stomach had not betrayed him, he should have been sound asleep under the covers by now.

When Youngbae returned with the bowls of steaming white rice, they finally began to eat in what was perhaps the most silent meal that Jiyong had had in awhile. He kept sneaking furtive looks at Youngbae and Hyorin in between mouthfuls of kimchi stew and white rice, hoping that something—some sliver of a memory—would come back to him. He had done that some four or five times when on the sixth, his gaze met Youngbae’s, who began to choke on his food in earnest. Jiyong winced apologetically, dumped the rest of his rice into the remainder of his stew, shoveled it into his mouth and quickly excused himself from the table, bowls and cutlery in hand.

He was washing the soap off his cutlery in the kitchen when Youngbae came up from behind him to apologize, “Jiyong… look, about just now… I should’ve been more sensitive… Dami _noona_ said something about your amnesia, but she didn’t say very much… and, I didn’t know man…”

“That’s alright… There’s… quite a lot that I don’t remember. It’s not just Hyorin… and I don’t want you to get offended or anything…” Jiyong squeezed his eyes shut, his voice trailing off as he wondered how he could explain his condition in the least shocking and most tactful manner possible. His brain, already sluggish from fourteen hours of traveling, was slowly succumbing to the food coma.

Youngbae seemed to sense his fatigue. “Nah, it’s cool. You should go get some rest. We can talk about this later,” he said to Jiyong’s relief.

It seemed like it was ages afterwards that Jiyong awoke in his bed, his body still stiff and aching from before. He stretched his arms outwards and his joints made soft popping noises. He wanted to flip around and go back to sleep, but he noticed then the faint glow of the evening sun streaming in through the bedroom window, the shadows of trees playing across the bedroom wall. His dreams had been like those shadows, a series of muddled shapes and figures, except that they had been accompanied by the distant sounds of wailing. It made him wonder whether Youngbae, Hyorin and himself had experienced something very sad together.

He unplugged his phone, which he had left charging on the bedside table, and was greeted by Janghyun’s messages wishing him good morning and asking for a look at the place. He was standing in a corner, taking a video of his room when he heard strains of what sounded like a cat yowling. It sounded strangely like the wailing he had heard in his dreams. He walked towards the bathroom and panned the camera from left to right to get a good shot of the entire space before tapping on the red button to stop the recording.

Finally, he sent the video to Janghyun along with the message, “Better than a photo, here’s a video of what the guest room looks like.” And then, because he could hear the yowling quite distinctly in his playback, added, “Ignore the stray cat making noises in the background.”

Janghyun’s reply made Jiyong frown, “Cat? Sounds like a baby crying to me.” _Baby? Youngbae and Hyorin’s? No, that can’t be right._ Youngbae would've told him, surely…

Suddenly, Jiyong found himself possessed by a strong desire to find out. By the time he had left the guest room, the crying had stopped and he realized that, not having had a tour of the premises, he had no idea where to go. The corridor facing the room door led straight to the front entrance, so that was a no-go. Turning to the right, he recognized the short corridor he had passed through to get to the dining room and so he followed it, to find that the dining room was connected only to the kitchen and to the corridor through which he had come. Turning on his heel, he mused at how glad he was to have taken a good, long nap; a nap that made him view his mistakes in self-exploration as funny rather than bothersome.

He had gone back to the guest room and was about to take his chance at the corridor to its left when the wailing began again. He followed the sound until he glimpsed Youngbae, sitting in the living room, bouncing a baby up and down in his arms. _Janghyun was right after all..._  Jiyong was not sure whom of the two looked more distressed—the baby was red in the face from crying but Youngbae, too, looked like he was about to collapse in a fit of tears. Jiyong wanted to approach the both of them—wanted especially to find out more about the little human—and yet he held back, watching them both from the living room doorway. Just like it had been when he had seen Youngbae and Hyorin setting the dining table together in the morning, he felt peculiar: as if he were an actor that had come onto set at precisely the wrong time. And so he watched, leaning against the doorframe, as Youngbae did his best to get the baby to fall asleep. When the task was finally complete, Youngbae looked up and jumped when he saw Jiyong leaning on the doorframe.

“I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you!” Jiyong apologized quickly.

“It’s alright. Have you been waiting very long?”

Jiyong shook his head, “Just thought it would be easier for you to put her to bed if I didn’t disturb.”

Youngbae smiled, “Did she wake you? She’s really loud…” He spoke of his child’s cries the way only a new parent could, apologetic yet not without a certain tinge of pride.

“Can I… hold her?” Not having been around many children since awaking from his coma, Jiyong was not sure how to act around babies this tiny, and yet he felt drawn to the small human.

“Sure, it’s about the only time you can hold her. She’s quite shy around strangers when she’s awake, and she really prefers her mother over me, but Hyorin’s gone out,” he replied, motioning to transfer the child into Jiyong’s awkwardly placed arms. “Her name is Ha-eun by the way,” he added.

“Ha-eun… little baby Ha-eun,” Jiyong murmured, feeling the weight and warmth of the little girl in his arms. “H-how old is she?” Jiyong was really more interested in knowing whether Ha-eun’s birth was something he ought to have known about.

“She turns four months in December,” Youngbae said, and Jiyong relaxed. She had been born after his coma—there was no way he could have found out. “When you get tired of holding her, you can put her down in the cot. She might wake up and start crying again, but if she does you can just pick her up and bounce her around—she likes that,” Youngbae added as he stood up, “I need to use the bathroom.”

Jiyong nodded. His arms were getting sore but he waited until Youngbae had gone out of sight before he rose from the couch to place the sleeping child gently down onto the mattress in the cot. He was gazing at Ha-eun’s little face, marveling at his own success at not having woken her, when her eyes cracked open. _Oh shit_. She seemed to look around for a moment and when she saw only Jiyong’s unfamiliar visage, her face distorted as her mouth opened to let out a shriek that could rival a banshee’s.

He reached down into the cot to pick her up, as Youngbae had instructed, when the memory floated across his vision. _A little girl in a bright red coat and a matching beanie, sitting on a table, facing away from him. “_ 부끄러워 _…”_ He lifted Ha-eun up into his arms, supporting her head so that it leaned against his left shoulder. _The little girl in a man’s arms—her father’s? Her face buried in her dad’s shoulder, refusing to look._ Ha-eun was crying and he did not know how to make her stop. He remembered Youngbae’s advice to “bounce her around” and he jiggled her about, not knowing if he was doing it right. _“_ 하루야 _,_ 인사해 _!” The girl stretched her tiny fist out towards him and he bumped his own against hers._

_“_ Here, let me have her. I don’t know why she keeps waking up today, she’s been getting better at sleeping through the night,” Youngbae was back from the bathroom. He stretched his arms out toward Jiyong, who gladly handed him the bawling baby. To Ha-eun he cooed softly, saying, “아빠 왔어~ 울지 마, 하은아~”

Jiyong sat on the couch in silence, waiting for Youngbae to quieten the child. He mentally ran through the new images that had appeared in his head—it had been a long time since he had recovered a memory in which Seunghyun _hyung_ did not feature. Although he had no idea whom the little girl in red had been, he was pleased. After Youngbae had placed the sleeping Ha-eun into the cot, he spoke up, “I know this is out of the blue but… do we… know a child… who goes by the name of Haru?”

“Haru?” Youngbae repeated, turning around to face Jiyong, “Tablo  _hyung_ has a daughter. Her name is Haru. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing… It’s just… my amnesia... maybe you should sit down first,” Jiyong said. He looked meaningfully at the one-seater beside the cot and waited until Youngbae did as he had suggested, “Look, I think I should tell you this now, just to get things straight… Remember when I didn’t know who Hyorin was this morning? To tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize you from memory either.”

“What do you mean? Surely, you know who _I_ am?” Youngbae looked at him with a teasing grin.

“Well… I know you are Dong Youngbae, and that we were members in Big Bang together, but I know this because I found out about it online, and my sister confirmed it. I… I don’t remember any of this. I remember… very little about Big Bang or what has happened in the last fifteen or so years,” Jiyong explained, looking steadily at Youngbae as he did so.

When Youngbae looked back at him uncomprehendingly, Jiyong decided that he had to explain from the very start. And so he did, beginning with what his sister had told him about the car crash in Gibraltar, covering his coma and his family’s attempt at hiding his identity and ending with his suicide attempt and recovery just two months prior. Jiyong watched with the barest amusement as the knit of confusion in Youngbae’s brows dissolved, only to be transposed upwards to form creases on his forehead as his eyebrows rose in disbelief.

“Come on… you’re joking right? This is a joke. If you’re doing this to explain why you haven’t texted in a few months, you really don’t have to. No hard feelings. We’ve known each other for a long time, bro. There’s no need to…” Youngbae trailed off.

Jiyong did not smile.

“Alright, let’s say this is for real. Why are you here then? God knows how much you wanted to forget about the… incident,” Youngbae muttered, avoiding Jiyong’s gaze.

“What incident?” Jiyong asked sharply.

“The one with Seunghyun _hyung_! Please don’t tell me you forgot about that too,” Youngbae’s typically calm voice was laced with incredulity but Jiyong sensed his hesitation.

“I told you, I remember close to nothing about Big Bang! That’s why I’m back here, trying to recover these memories…” he sighed, “Youngbae, do you have _any idea_ what it’s like to forget whole chunks of your life? Or not to be able to speak Korean?” Jiyong had not wanted to raise his voice, but Youngbae’s assertion that he was faking his amnesia, that he was doing this all of this as an elaborate joke, exasperated him. Ha-eun let out a whimper and the two men, suddenly made aware of her existence, turned towards the cot.

Youngbae arose to check that Ha-eun was still sound asleep, then walked over to Jiyong, plopping himself down on the space beside him. Jiyong inched slightly over to the left. Youngbae sat awkwardly for a moment before reaching out to sling an arm around Jiyong’s shoulders. Jiyong had seen the arm coming but still, he body stiffened.

Youngbae, as if confirming something, nodded briefly to himself. And for the second time that day, he apologized, “This is… not something easy to accept, you know. It’s not everyday someone comes and tells you they’ve got amnesia. And… well… if you have any questions… and I’m sure you have many… I’ll… try my best to answer them.”

When Jiyong had entered the sitting room, the last rays of the evening sun had been shining in through the windows. He noticed now that the room was clothed in a muted darkness, lit up only by the faint light of the setting sun somewhere in the distance. In the pretext of reaching for the switch to the floor lamp on his left, he extracted himself from Youngbae’s semi-embrace. A soft _click!_ and the room was flooded in an orange glow.

“Tell me about… Big Bang. I hit my head, was in a coma for a good long while… You’re here, married to Hyorin, father to a four month old girl… What about everyone else? What are they doing now? Do you guys still keep in contact?” Jiyong asked, crossing his legs and leaning himself into the corner between the backrest and the left arm of the couch.

Youngbae, too, made himself comfortable on the other end of the sofa, before saying, “Yeah, we do. Even before the coma, you were getting rather distant, but the rest of us… Anyway, I’m the only one who’s still here in Korea. Daesung moved to Japan… sometime in late spring this year, I think. And our youngest moved to Singapore. He said it would be easier to take care of his businesses from the island city.”

Jiyong waited for him to say something about their eldest member, but when Youngbae kept silent, he prompted, “And what about Seunghyun _hyung_? You said something about an incident.”

Youngbae gave Jiyong a look that the latter could not decipher, glanced at his watch, then heaved a sigh, “It’s getting late. Can this wait until dinner?” As if sensing Jiyong’s reluctance, he quickly added, “I don’t have to cook. We can just order in. Fried chicken or something. And we can talk while we wait.”

Jiyong nodded and Youngbae fished out his cellphone and walked out of the room to place an order. He seemed to take an inordinately long time, but Jiyong waited, his fingers interlocked, resting lightly on his knees. He wondered what new information Youngbae would reveal. 

“Is there anything you remember at all? About what happened?” Youngbae asked as he walked back into the room, a bottle of soju and two small glasses in one hand and a six pack of beer in the other. He put the drinks down, withdrew his phone from his back pocket and placed it face down upon the coffee table. Sitting down, he motioned for Jiyong to help himself with the alcohol.

“I don’t remember anything,” Jiyong responded as he pulled the tab on a can of beer and Youngbae twisted the cap off the green soju bottle, pouring them each a glass. Jiyong had considered revealing what little of his memories had returned to him, but realized that this would be a good opportunity to see how much Youngbae, supposedly the member he had been closest to aside from Seunghyun _hyung_ , knew about what had transpired.

His old friend lifted up the tiny glass. “Cheers,” Jiyong said, lifting his beer bottle up to clink against it.

Youngbae emptied his glass, scratched his temple, and let out a second, deeper sigh. Jiyong almost felt sorry for him.

“You said you came out of your coma three months ago, right?”

“No, two. I was _in_ the coma for three months,” Jiyong corrected, sipping his beer. He winced. It was bitter.

“Have you… um… dated anyone since then?” Youngbae’s words brought Jiyong to a halt. Thoughts of Janghyun flashed, unbidden, across his mind. This was definitely not how he had expected the conversation to go.

“… what? I don’t… what has this got to do with anything?” Jiyong mumbled.

“No, well, I don’t suppose it has…” Youngbae said, downing a second glass of soju, “actually, it doesn’t even matter if you’ve dated anyone—have you found yourself _attracted_ to anyone since then?” Youngbae’s revised question seemed even more intrusive than his original, but Jiyong was starting to see where he was going and so decided to help him out.

“I know I like men, if that’s what you’re trying to get at,” Jiyong said simply. The mixture of astonishment and relief on Youngbae’s face was palpable and it made Jiyong glad that they had gotten that out of the way.

His old friend looked at him carefully, swallowed a third shot, then finally began, “You say you don’t remember anything, so I’m going to do this from the start. You say you know you like men, and we—the members of Big Bang—knew this too. You never said this out loud, and there was talk of you dating females on occasion, but your inclinations were pretty obvious. I don’t think you ever acted on them. At least, not until the end. Of the four of us, you were always closest to Seunghyun _hyung_. And that became more evident once we started to diversify our interests. The two of you spent a lot of time together, going to art shows, having dinners together without the rest of us.”

Youngbae’s tone was not one of accusation and yet, Jiyong felt a strange desire to defend himself. _Isn’t it normal for people who have the same interests to spend more time together?_ Before he could argue, however, Youngbae continued, “We didn’t really worry about this, because we could see that you knew how… Big Bang’s interests, how YG Entertainment’s interests might be… affected if… you chose to develop that relationship… even in private… since both of your lives had become so public, thanks to your popularity… But one morning… I received a call from you.”

Youngbae paused, throwing down another shot. His tone had taken on a different tenor—low, soft and, if Jiyong were to admit it to himself, pained. “You were hysterical; sobbing uncontrollably. I had a hard time understanding what was wrong. It took me nearly ten minutes to get you to calm down, and then you told me that Seunghyun _hyung_ had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance.”

Jiyong, of course, already knew this information, having remembered what had taken place with the older man through his dreams and having been informed by his sister that they had sent him to the hospital when Jiyong had found him the following morning. So it was only when Youngbae had paused for a good few seconds that Jiyong realized he had to feign ignorance, to act as if it were the first time he was hearing this information.

“… an ambulance? D-did he hurt himself very badly?” Jiyong tried his best to inject a measure of uncertainty into his voice and was glad when Youngbae did not seem to pick up on his mistake.

“Yeah. He did. He hit himself on the head…” Youngbae responded. “The doctor said something about internal bleeding in the skull… Look, I know you’re probably wondering what all this has got to do with you. I want… I’m trying to tell this to you in a way that doesn’t—ah, forget it—he hit his head while the two of you were on drugs and having sex,” he finished bluntly, pouring another glass of soju down his throat. Jiyong had decided to stop keeping count of the number of glasses by then.

“A-are you sure? How did you… find out?” For all his pretending, Jiyong was genuinely curious about the answer to his second question. His memory of the event had ended with him opening his bedroom door and although his sister had told him that the rest of the Big Bang members had found out, she had never revealed how.

“When he was admitted to the hospital, the toxicology test report said that he had taken Ecstasy. The only reason this wasn’t revealed to the police was because the hospital he was sent to belonged to a family friend. The sex was… something you told us about. You… used it against CEO Yang Hyun Suk…" Youngbae paused. He tipped the green bottle to fill up his own glass then automatically made to re-fill Jiyong's, only to have the glass overflow.

He sighed, emptied his own glass, and continued, "when he found out about the drugs, he was ready to throw Seunghyun _hyung_ under the bus. With his previous drug charges, he would’ve been the perfect scapegoat. I think he almost managed to convince you—Seunghyun _hyung_ wasn’t in very good condition and the doctors predicted that if he did make it out of the coma, his mental faculties stood a high chance of being impaired, so he would barely suffer from the legal consequences anyway.” Jiyong felt a nagging sense of guilt creeping upon him. Where Dami had told him that he had refused to disassociate himself from wrongdoing, Youngbae was now telling him that he had almost given in to the temptation. He lifted the beer can up to his lips and took a sip. Still bitter.

“What made me change my mind?” he asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

Youngbae reached for the bottle of soju again, saying, “a call from his sister, Hye-youn. She said he was showing signs of waking up. You rushed over to the hospital and stayed by his side for the rest of the day. His right index finger moved once—I think that was what convinced you… You called CEO Yang and told him that you would not agree to making Seunghyun _hyung_ a scapegoat and when he tried to reason with you… you threatened to make a public announcement about having… had sex with _hyung._ We were all standing outside the ICU at that time—his family included. I think it… came as a great shock to them. I think that’s why they moved Seunghyun _hyung_ from the hospital that night... You came back the next morning to find them gone.”

Jiyong leaned back into the couch, his head bowed. He took another sip of his beer and watched as Youngbae cracked a can open for himself. The two men sat quietly, drinking for awhile. And then Jiyong looked up at Youngbae, asking, “Where is he now?”

“We don’t know,” Youngbae looked tired. He seemed like he was about to say something else when the roar of a motorbike sounded from outside the house, “that must be the chicken…” Youngbae rose from the couch unsteadily, just as his phone began to vibrate.

Jiyong waited in silence for Youngbae to return. He sat, one leg still crossed over the other, looking down at his fingers. He understood why it was that his sister, who had moved across continents with him and who no longer lived in Korea did not know what had happened to Seunghyun _hyung_ , but he was stumped as to why Youngbae, who had remained in Korea and who had all the contacts that he did, had not found anything out in the last one and a half years.

He waited until they had begun eating and the table was littered with beer cans and chicken bones before asking in as nonchalant a manner as possible, “How come you never found out about _hyung_? I mean, Korea isn’t such a big place… and I’m sure there aren’t that many elite-ranking hospitals…”

Youngbae took a large swig of his beer and gave Jiyong a hard stare. “You really don’t remember anything, do you…” his words were a statement of fact, and Jiyong could detect an undercurrent of pity and something else… was it resentment?

“We tried,” he said, putting the chicken wing he had been holding down on the plate in front of him. “We tried to get in contact with them through the phone, by looking for them at Seunghyun _hyung_ ’s house… You know, Jiyong, I don’t think you know how _lucky_ you are,” Youngbae had begun to wipe his red, sauce-stained fingers on a serviette with more force than Jiyong deemed necessary.

“ _Lucky_? What do you mean?” Jiyong demanded.

Youngbae considered him for a moment, “You _forgot_ all of this,” he said emphatically, throwing back his head and finishing the last of his can. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’re back here. You lost a friend and a lover and you had the fortune to _forget_ your troubles. Your mind was wiped clean of him, of us! Why would you try so hard to recall these memories? Didn’t your sister warn you that you were better off forgetting?”

The quickness of Youngbae’s anger surprised Jiyong and his own annoyance dissolved. He opened his mouth to explain, to try to make Youngbae understand what it meant—what it felt like—to lose several years of one’s memories, but Youngbae cut him off, “Do you _know_ what it’s like to spend every single day of your life thinking about what could have been? To suffer from the consequences of something that isn’t even your fault?” Jiyong realized that Youngbae, whose breath smelled quite strongly of alcohol, was no longer talking about him.

“I-I’m—”

“If you can’t think on behalf of us, at least spare a thought for his family. You want to know what happened after they switched hospitals? You called Hye-youn _noona_ non-stop, day and night. When she finally picked up, she told you she was sorry. That _she_ was sorry. _She_ , whose brother was lying comatose in a hospital bed, hooked up to multiple machines, was _sorry_. For _you_ ,” Youngbae eyes flashed and his words escaped his lips in a hiss. Jiyong wanted to say something, anything, to assuage his anger, but the words faltered on his lips.

“And now you come back, a year and a half later, telling me that somehow _you_ are the lucky bastard to have forgotten all of this?” Youngbae snorted, his face a mask of derision as he rose from his seat, “When his mother found that Hye-youn _noona_ was on the phone with you, she screamed blue murder. They want you to leave their son _alone_ , Jiyong. And I would respect their wishes, if I were you.”

With that, Youngbae stumbled out of the sitting room, and Jiyong stared at his retreating back in silence, not quite certain how to react. A part of him wanted to drag Youngbae back into the room, to force him to sit down and listen to reason—the amnesia had not been afflicted on him by his choice—but Jiyong knew that Youngbae was drunk and that no amount of reasoning would do any good at this point. Another part of him, however, recognized the truth in his ex-group member’s words—he had made two crucial choices: the first, to pursue a non-platonic relationship with Seunghyun _hyung_ and the second, to choose to defend _hyung_ 's honor. None of these choices were wrong in and of themselves—some might even call the latter decision “righteous”—but had he not sacrificed the livelihoods of his fellow group members in the process? And for him to forget what he had done? Jiyong could fully well comprehend Youngbae’s ire. But he was back here, wasn’t he? He had chosen to return, to retrieve this past forgotten to him in spite of his family members’ multiple warnings.

Jiyong was still deep in thought when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. He looked up to see Hyorin walking in, still dressed to the nines from wherever she had been before. She took one look at the coffee table—the spread of chicken bones, cans of beer and the soju—and gave a sigh.

“Youngbae must have gotten into one of his moods again…Thanks for looking after Ha-eun,” she said, giving Jiyong a small smile. She walked towards the cot to pick up the small child.

“I… I didn’t really do very much. She slept really soundly throughout,” he replied. Of course, Jiyong had not really remembered Ha-eun at all, he had merely been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had not left the room.

“You can go to bed first… I’ll clean this up after I put Ha-eun to bed. God knows my husband probably drank much more than you did,” she said as she moved towards the door. When Jiyong did not respond, she paused at the doorway, turned around and said in a soft but clear voice, “I hope he didn’t say anything… stupid to you… He’s been really stressed out lately, especially after I gave birth to Ha-eun. He worries about supporting the family… I tell him that we have all the money that we need to last us a lifetime, but you know what he’s like… Wants to be a good husband, a good son, a good father…” Her voice trailed off and she smiled at Jiyong again, apologetically this time, “I’m sorry… I’m ranting, aren’t I? Leave the trash, or if you’re up to it, bag it up and bring it to the kitchen. I’ll do the sorting.”

When she was gone, Jiyong cleared up the trash, sorting the chicken bones, the metal beer cans and the soju bottle into different bags. He placed the uneaten chicken into the refrigerator and washed the two tiny glass cups, but not before downing the shot that Youngbae had poured him, forcing himself to taste the acrid, medicinal bitterness of the alcohol as it slid down his throat.


	8. 다시 사라지는 과거 | The Past Disappears Once More

By the next morning, Jiyong had decided what he must do: he would leave Youngbae’s house and head off to Seoul on his own. After returning to his room the previous night, he had not been able to fall asleep. The guest room had not been furnished with a desk, and so he sat with his back against the footboard of the bed, making plans for the following day. After Youngbae’s drunken conversation with him, he had spoken to Janghyun over FaceTime, trying work out what he should do next. Jiyong had banked on staying with Youngbae and having Youngbae as a tour guide of sorts to show him around. But given his old friend’s outburst, Jiyong was now keenly aware of how negatively ㅗhe felt with regards to Jiyong’s brief relationship with Seunghyun _hyung_ and Big Bang’s disbandment. When it came to deciding whether to continue staying with Youngbae for the rest of his two-week vacation, Janghyun had streamlined it to a question of whether Jiyong was going to take Youngbae’s advice.

“I think it really depends on what you want to do while you’re there,” Janghyun had said.

“What do you mean? You know what I’m back here for: to find out about my past as G-Dragon, as a Big Bang member, and if I’m lucky, to get more information about what happened to Seunghyun _hyung_ ,” he replied without a pause.

“So you’re definitely still going to go ahead with that then?” Janghyun asked, and when Jiyong cocked his head to one side in incomprehension, continued, “If you want to keep doing this, I’ll do my best to support you but Youngbae wasn’t wrong you know… what happened between you and TOP was traumatizing. Like Dr. Lopez said, I think you forgot so much of this after the coma in part because your brain _wanted_ to block out those memories… so that you could move forward.”

“But Youngbae also said that my choice to expose my relationship between Seunghyun _hyung_ and myself led to the disbandment and… it’s not quite… fair that I’m the one who gets to forget all of this and to live like it never happened, is it?” he argued.

“Life… isn’t fair, Yong. And what would you do if you found out the truth anyway? You now know the truth about how the disbandment happened; what can you do with this information? What _are_ you going to do about it?” Janghyun countered, raising his eyebrow as he inflected his voice.

“I-I don’t—well… nothing, I guess…” Jiyong murmured, not looking into the front-facing camera. There was silence between the two of them as Janghyun kept quiet, letting the message sink in.

It was Jiyong who spoke up first, saying, “But… isn’t _knowing_ important? I have to _know_ to make an actual decision, don’t I? It’s only because I know what truly happened with the disbandment that I can say there’s nothing I can do about the situation… I mean, I could give Youngbae more money since he’s worried about providing for his family but I don’t think that’s what he wants _or_ needs… And I can’t provide him with… job security or… peace of mind…”

Janghyun let out an audible sigh, but Jiyong, looking determinedly at the mottled grey carpet, rattled on in spite of him, “I know Youngbae said that Seunghyun _hyung_ ’s family wants me to stay away from him. And maybe they do but… I have to find out, haven’t I? I have to know that that _is_ really what they want, even… after… a year and a half. And… and if _hyung_ is in any condition to talk to me at all… to know if… that is what he wants.”

“And what about me, Yong? What about what _I_ want?” Janghyun asked. His voice had an edge to it. Jiyong looked up at him in surprise. “What happens if you find TOP, and he’s doing great, and he wants to have you back? What will you do then? What am I supposed to do then?” Janghyun voice wavered.

Jiyong’s eyes widened. “Oh fuck… I’m really sorry. I should’ve—I didn’t mean it in that way…” he began, shifting his position so that he was now sitting upright and looking straight at Janghyun’s face on screen, “I don’t think I’ve said this enough since we got together, but you’re really, really important to me. This is going to sound like the lines from a B-grade movie but I really was in _such a mess_ before—before us. And you’ve loved me, and helped me recover—physically, mentally… emotionally… I just meant that if Seunghyun _hyung_ were… were responsive at all, I’d feel a sense of… responsibility towards him. I’d want to know if there were ways in which I could help him recover…”

Janghyun’s features softened, but Jiyong continued, “Look… if you need me to… I’ll give this up. I’ll leave this place tomorrow morning and take the next plane back to Gibraltar. I mean it.”

The younger man looked away. “Nah… don’t do that… stay. Do what you have to… I know this is important to you. You need to find closure on that chapter of your life before you can move on… and you won’t be able to if you don’t know what’s happened. I… just got a bit insecure, that’s all. He was such a big part of your life for so many years and we—we just met two months ago…” Janghyun’s voice trailed off.

“Hyun, look at me, please,” Jiyong said, waiting for Janghyun’s gaze to match his before speaking, “I want—no, I need you to know how much you mean to me. I-I did spend a lot of time with Seunghyun _hyung_ and he was a big part of my life. I’ve never hidden that from you and I’m not going to start hiding it from you now. But _hyung_ is a part of the past—my past, to be sure—but still, the past. You… you are my present and I want you to be a part of my future.”

Jiyong’s face was flushed. He had almost cringed at his own words, so cheesy they were. But he knew, even as he spoke them, how much they rang true. As it was, a large part of him longed for Janghyun. Youngbae’s outburst had made him realize how little he was welcomed in this place; more than a feeling of rejection, Jiyong was tired and lonely. He wanted someone on his side—someone who understood, or at the very least, kept trying to understand how difficult it was to live with amnesia, someone who didn’t keep telling him he needed to leave the past in the past (as if it wasn’t the past that kept sneaking up on him). What Jiyong needed someone who made facing the future more appealing than diving into that past. Janghyun was exactly that. More than once, Jiyong had wondered how the younger man knew exactly how to comfort him, and he had reminded himself time and time again not to take his thoughtfulness for granted.

“Are you going to move out of Youngbae’s for the remainder of the two weeks then?” Janghyun asked, picking up their previous line of conversation. Once an argument had been resolved, Janghyun seldom harped on it. That was another thing Jiyong liked about him.

“I think I would have to, don’t you?” he returned, “Even if Youngbae wakes up tomorrow morning not remembering what he said last night, I’m sure he still thinks that I would do better not to try to recover my memories.”

“Yeah… I don’t think he would be of much help to you in that case…” Janghyun agreed, nodding, “who knows? He might even lead you down the wrong path just so you don’t find anything out about TOP.”

“Mm hmm… and I can always ask my sister about the places I used to visit… she won’t volunteer any information on her own, but she’s been quite cooperative as long as I ask the questions first,” Jiyong said, stretching his legs out beneath him. “The only thing I’m worried about is the language barrier. Did I tell you what happened—or didn’t happen—with the driver this morning?”

Janghyun shook his head.

“He took a really long time to arrive at Youngbae’s and I wanted to ask him where we were going and how long more the journey was going to take… but I didn’t, because I couldn’t speak a word of Korean! I really should’ve continued attending those classes, shouldn’t I?” Jiyong gave an embarrassed grin.

Janghyun laughed, “you know, it really isn’t that bad. Most of them can speak some English—not well, certainly, but they can. And you’ll be going to Seoul right? So many places there have their material translated to English and the people our age speak enough of it to get by. If you need help, they’ll definitely be able to assist you. Although, of course, you might not want to show your face too often.”

“Yeah? Well, you know this better than I do…” Jiyong admitted, “you think I’ll be fine?” Now that Janghyun seemed to think that he would do alright on his own, Jiyong turned hesitant.

“Sure. Do you think I’d ask you to go off on your own if I didn’t think so?” Janghyun said with a smile, “but I do think you’ll need to do some planning. Like you said, talk to your sister, find out where you used to hang out… Maybe even ask her what she knows about TOP and his current whereabouts. And then make use of the internet access that you have to plan your route… And you’ll need to book accommodation, of course… and transport…” Jiyong’s face must have registered some kind of uncertainty, because the younger man quickly added, “How about you go about planning your route, and I’ll take care of your accommodation and transport for you? I’ll find you some place central. You just have to send me your location and I’ll do the rest.”

Jiyong nodded firmly, “I’ll do that then.”

It was two in the morning when Jiyong finally slumped into bed, his notebook filled with black ball-point scribbles, several entries written, crossed-out and written again. He had created an itinerary of sorts for himself, and had decided to take things slow—a few locations a day, never more than three. Taking Janghyun’s advice to put the internet access he had to good use, he had decided on the routes he would take each day—a tedious task as Google Maps did not seem to work very well in the country. When he had asked it to find the shortest route from the hotel Janghyun had booked him to the YG Entertainment headquarters, all the portions he had to cover on foot were plotted inaccurately—as if he had sprouted wings and could now fly over buildings. His phone gallery was also filled with sections of maps and photographs he had saved of the places he would be visiting. As he scrolled through them one final time while lying in bed, he realized that the trepidation he had felt before had been replaced by a thrumming excitement. Even if visits to those places did not inspire him to recall any memories, he would be exploring places new to him. He could pretend that he was Kim Mangyong, massive fanboy of G-Dragon, going on a tour of his favorite artiste’s hang outs.

Jiyong awoke to the insistent beeping of his alarm at six the next day. He had had far from enough sleep but he needed to pack—Janghyun had booked him a cab, which was due to arrive in an hour’s time. He stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the bathroom to do his morning ablutions and his stomach rumbled audibly. By the time he had finished throwing all of his clothes into a haphazard little pile in his suitcase, he was beginning to wonder if it would be too much to ask Youngbae for some breakfast before he bade the family goodbye.

He opened the guest room door as widely as it would possibly go, then went back to get his suitcase, which he had left in the middle of the guest room floor. So preoccupied he was with getting the suitcase across the threshold, he did not notice when Youngbae, who had wanted to wake him up for breakfast, approached him.

“Jiyong, where are you going?” Youngbae’s eyebrows creased in confusion.

“Um… to Seoul!” he replied, his voice unnaturally chirpy.

“Hmm? I thought you were going to stay with us for two weeks,” Youngbae asked, puzzled.

“Change of plans… I… I’m going to Seoul,” he repeated, not quite knowing what else to say, “I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than I already have…”

Youngbae frowned, “was it something I said last night? It’s been awhile since I’ve had so much to drink… Look, if I said something, I’m really sorry. Do stay… Or at least leave your luggage here, and we can make a day trip up to Seoul if that’s what you want to do today…”

Jiyong shook his head, “I-I’ve already made plans. I’ve booked a hotel room and a cab…” he said to Youngbae’s surprise.

Jiyong made to drag his luggage towards the front door while Youngbae looked on with an expression of abject helplessness. His old friend seemed to want to say something, but just then, Jiyong heard the blare of a car horn. “That must be the cab driver!” he exclaimed, hurrying down the corridor. Before Youngbae could think of anything else to stop him, he was out the front door.

“Bye Youngbae! Say goodbye to Ha-eun for me! And thank Hyorin on my behalf!” Jiyong called out, as he loaded his suitcase into the trunk and slammed it shut. He had pulled open the backseat door and was already making his way inside before Youngbae seemed to come to his senses, rushing out the house towards him.

Jiyong was pulling the door shut when Youngbae put a hand out to stop him. “Give me your phone,” he said, stretching his other hand out towards Jiyong, “At least let me give you my cellphone number.”

Jiyong complied. He fished his phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Youngbae, waiting in silence as the other man keyed in his phone number. Youngbae handed Jiyong’s phone back to him with a funny look on his face, saying, “All the best on your journey. Call me if you need anything, alright?” Jiyong only had enough time to nod before Youngbae slammed the door shut, waving goodbye to him as the cab made its way out the driveway and rounded the corner. It was only when Youngbae’s house had gone out of sight and Jiyong glanced at his phone screen to check the time that he noticed four new messages from Janghyun.

[ **Janghyun** ] App says the taxi has arrived  
[ **Janhgyun** ] Should bring you straight to the hotel  
[ **Janghyun** ] Tell me when you arrive  
[ **Janghyun** ] Love you :)

He smiled to himself. It was barely a quarter past seven but he could tell it was going to be a good day already.

* * *

Jiyong had decided the previous night that the first stop he would make after settling his business at the hotel (and grabbing some food) was his old home. Although his sister had reminded him that he had spent more time on tour and recording at various studios than in their previous home, particularly in his last few years as a Big Bang member, he reasoned that as the place had appeared in his dreams, going back to it and seeing it for what would most likely be the last time might help him gain some closure.

Munching on a chunk of the egg bun he had bought for 2000 won from a roadside stall, he pulled up a screen shot of a section of the map that he had labeled “hotel vicinity”. A red circle he had drawn the previous night marked the nearest subway station—Myeongdong—and a blue zig-zagging line marked the route he had to take from the hotel to get there. He had considered taking a cab or renting a car to drive to his destinations but the novelty of all and everything called out to him. Seoul was a city in the way that Gibraltar was not, and Jiyong felt like it had been a very long time since he had seen so many cars on paved roads that criss-crossed each other in ways that did not seem to make sense.

As he walked towards the subway station, winding his way around the hustle and bustle of the streets, he grinned inwardly. Janghyun had chosen well—there were so many tourists in this area that as long as he was careful to wear his mask, no one would stop to give him a second look. He had decided his outfit for the day at Youngbae’s: a long, black down jacket, grey wool beanie, black boots and other nondescript items of clothing. The weather not so cold that a thick, wool trench coat would not have kept him warm, but a puffer jacket hid his frame better and provided him with psychological assurance of his invisibility. He took another bite of the bun and almost choked as it stuck to the roof of his mouth. _Choke on a dry egg bun, check,_ he thought.

Nearing the station, Jiyong popped the last of the food into his mouth, squashed the little square of cardboard that had come with it into a ball and threw it into the makeshift trash bin he spotted on the roadside. He walked down the two flights of stairs leading to the subway station and went in search of the nearest ticket vending machine. He found a blue one with a purple screen, with instructions available in Korean and English, but also in Chinese and Japanese. _Had these been available two years ago?_ Jiyong tapped on the screen, scrolling through the pages of station names until he found the one he wanted. He gave the screen a final tap, slid a red 5000 won note into the slot, and waited. The temporary transport pass fell into the bottom cavity with a click. _Now to catch the right train._

He paused in front of the signs briefly, trying to figure out if it was the train towards Danggogae or Oido that he needed. Once he got that sorted out, he walked straight to the end of the station, where he avoided the worst of the crowds and boarded the final carriage. Leaning with his back against the coated metal of the heated subway car, Jiyong looked out into the black darkness of the tunnels that whizzed past him. Working his way around Seoul had been relatively fuss free thus far. Janghyun had been right about the English. Perhaps it was because he was in a tourist hot spot, but everything from the street signs to the little LED screens in each carriage that flashed the names of the subway stations were displayed in a variety of languages.

Jiyong was pleased to find that navigating his way from the station to his old apartment complex was quite as simple as going from his hotel to Myeongdong station. The building was located near a good size park and he made a mental note to check the park out after his little reconnaissance. Gazing upwards at the apartment building that towered over him, he noticed how the many-paneled glass windows reflected the pale, grey-blue of the sky. It was a cold, wintry morning—colder, it seemed, than it had been at Youngbae’s—but he was thankful for the few rays of sun, shining weakly through the gathering clouds. He stood beneath what sunlight there was, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to keep warm. He was struck by how much this experience mirrored his experience of taking Ecstasy back in Gibraltar. He had come here with some slight hope that the place he had called home for a few years would somehow look more familiar to him than the rest of Seoul, and an even slighter hope that he might be hit with a rush of memories. But now that he was actually here, and he felt none of that, he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He began to pace up and down and then noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a woman in her early thirties, pushing her child in a pram towards the entrance. He walked into the shade of the building and fell into step behind her, ensuring that he kept enough distance that she would not be uncomfortable but yet was close enough to follow her into the lobby after she had keyed in the password.

She called for the elevator, and he waited with her but when the doors opened, he realized that he had no idea which floor he used to live on. Not wanting the lady to suspect his motives, however, he followed her in and after she pressed the number five, pressed ten on a whim. Alighting on the tenth floor, he stepped out into the corridor. The shiny metal interior of the lift gave way to concrete walls that felt cold and alien. Jiyong had the distinct sensation that he did not belong there. He turned towards his left. His heart gave a little lurch. It was the front door he had pushed open on the night of Seunghyun _hyung_ ’s accident. Was this really… his old apartment? Could he have been that lucky after all? He turned on his heel towards the right, walking back to the elevator, looking around, trying to find more clues. And then he saw it—another door—almost exactly like the one he had seen less than a minute ago. That was when it dawned on him that all the front doors in the apartment building must be of the same design. Jiyong could feel his heartbeat slowing, his chest filling with a strange mixture of disappointment and relief.

He walked back slowly towards the elevator doors, running his fingers lightly along the pastel walls as he did so. He pressed the down button, watching as the screen lit up in front of him, a pale flashing yellow arrow and a number in the 20s indicating that there was an elevator coming down from one of the higher floors towards him. He wondered who it was that lived in this building and whether any of them would recognize him for who he was if he removed his mask. Although he knew how silly it was to risk being seen, he toyed with the idea anyway, and had reached a hand up to unhook the elastic band from behind his ear when the elevator doors slid open.

The sight of another man, also sporting a mask, standing inside the elevator gave him pause. His hand fell back to his side and he stepped in.

To Jiyong’s surprise, the man said with mild annoyance in his voice, “지용아! 어디 갔어?” Jiyong looked up at the man, bemused, as the elevator doors closed behind him. _Who is this person? How did he recognize me? What does he want from me?_ Instinctively, Jiyong averted his eyes.

 _“_ 네 집에 갔는데 사람이 없던데 _…_ ” the man continued. Jiyong could feel the man’s eyes on him, as if he expected some sort of response, while Jiyong tried his best to avoid eye contact. He wished he knew what the man was saying. _Is he a Big Bang fan? Thank God I didn’t remove my mask._

“I-I think you’ve got the wrong person… I-I d-don’t speak Korean…,” Jiyong coughed, pressing his face into his sleeve. His voice had broken slightly as he lowered it in an attempt to sound less like himself.

“무슨 장난을 쳐? 네가 한국말을 왜 모르냐? 그리고 붙임 머리를 왜 했지? 아무튼 오늘 스케줄이 있잖아. 빨리 가자!” the stranger seemed genuinely irate now. He had said something about hurrying somewhere. Not since his suicide attempt had Jiyong wished that he had continued with his Korean lessons as much as he did now.

The elevator emitted a soft “bing!” and its doors slid open once more. Jiyong did not wait for them to open fully before he dashed out, only to realize that he was not at the lobby but in the underground car park. He had not pressed the lobby button when had entered the elevator. _Fuck_. _Best to just get away first,_ he thought. But he had barely taken two steps when the man grabbed his wrist from behind, “ 어디 가? 차가—”

Jiyong turned around to face him, wanting to break free of his grip. _What does he want? Why is he being so persistent?_ Jiyong was ready to run, to put some distance between himself and this indefatigable stranger. And then, Jiyong’s bewildered eyes met his. _Those eyes_.

His black hair, short when Jiyong had last seen it, now reached past his ears. He had combed it backwards. And his forehead, once smooth and clear before, had little lines—wrinkles—etched into them. Half of his face was hidden behind his black mask, just like the one Jiyong was wearing. The other half was framed by a pair of round, tortoiseshell glasses. But his eyes—those smoldering eyes—Jiyong would have recognized them anywhere. He had seen Seunghyun _hyung_ ’s eyes so many times in his dreams that he had lost count.

“Hy—” the word stuck in his throat like the egg bun he had had earlier.

“ 아 !  죄송합니다 !” the voice was not hyung’s. Jiyong whipped his head around and saw a lady, clad from head to toe in black, including a pair of black, oval shades, rushing towards them. He did not recognize her.

Without so much as stopping to greet Jiyong properly, she reached out to pull Seunghyun hyung’s hand away from his. Then, as if realizing her own brashness, turned to Jiyong and said, bowing apologetically, “죄송한데… 저희 동생은 병이 좀 있어가지고 자주 사람들을 잘못 알아봐요. 불편하게 만들어서 정말 죄송합니다.”

Although Jiyong did not know the full details of what she had said, he could sense the apology in her body language. Seunghyun _hyung_ still had not let go of his wrist.

“누나 여기에서 뭐해?” _Noona? This is Hye-youn noona then? The person he had called over and over again when Seunghyun hyung had disappeared from the hospital?_ Jiyong did a double take upon hearing Seunghyun's words.

“이 분을 괴롭히지 마라, 승현아… 우리 가자.” With that, her practiced fingers broke Seunghyun hyung’s grip on his wrist and ejaculating her final apology, the both of them were off. Jiyong stood rooted to the spot, shell-shocked. Soon, they rounded the corner and he could hear their arguing voices fading as they walked further and further away from him. A car door slammed, and the arguing stopped. 

Then Jiyong was running—sprinting in their direction—as quickly as his legs would carry him. He was glad for the relative weightlessness of his down jacket but his shoes smacked against the ground, thudding heavily with each step he took; these boots had not been made for running. His footsteps slowed as he rounded the corner just in time to see the gantry at the car park entrance—the only thing separating the black sedan waiting behind it from the outside world—lift upwards.

The sedan rolled forwards. “ _Hyung_!” he hollered, ripping his mask off with one hand, “ _hyung_!” He was running again. His lungs were bursting with need for air but his legs had taken on a life of their own and they carried him onwards. The sedan picked up speed, making its way up the slope, and Jiyong knew, somewhere at the back of his mind, that his efforts were futile. But still, he ran. The sedan disappeared from his view, and yet his legs refused to stop. He kept on until he emerged from the underground car park into the open air, doubling over and collapsing into a heap at the top of the slope, clutching his side, desperately gasping for every shred of breath he could draw in. The black sedan was no where in sight. _Hyung_ was gone again.


	9. 토끼 굴속으로 | Down the Rabbit Hole

Jiyong remained wheezing on the cold concrete ground by the entrance of the car park, his body a tangled mess, his mind a numb, buzzing blankness. He stayed there for a good ten minutes, barely moving aside from the rise and fall of his shoulders. It was only when his body began to tremble and his teeth to chatter that he realized how _cold_ he was. He leaned on his right hand for support, trying to get up, noticing then the mask he had worn, still clutched in his right fist. He lifted it to his face and attempted to hook the elastic bands behind his ears but his fingers were shaking so hard that he kept missing.

What little sunshine he had enjoyed before he had entered his old apartment building was now gone, the sun obscured by the quickly darkening clouds. He had to get out of the cold. He rose, his arms wrapped protectively around himself, stumbling without a real aim except for an instinctive desire to get to some place warmer. Five minutes later he found himself facing a row of eateries: three restaurants selling grilled meat, one selling fried chicken and a tiny café in the corner. The very thought of food made him feel sick. A warm drink—that was what he needed. The mental image of a steaming cup cheered him and like a firefly drawn to a light source, he staggered towards the café at the very end of the street, his shivering becoming more violent with each step. Fingers shaking visibly, he pushed on the handle of the glass door, which gave way with a soft tinkle. A regulator had been installed above the entrance and the warm air rushed out of the vents to greet him.

“어서 오세요~”

Jiyong stood in front of the counter for what seemed like a very long time, looking up at the menu written in multi-colored chalk, trying to decipher the little squiggles. The menu was written in both Korean and English, but the odd buzzing blankness, like static on a TV screen, inundated his mind, washing out any additional information he tried to absorb.

“고객님, 뭘로 드릴까요?” the girl at the counter asked, smiling pleasantly at him.

Finally, as if coming out of a trance, Jiyong spoke, his voice slow and heavy, “Can… I get a… a… latte…” and adding, almost as an afterthought, “please?”

Surprise registered on the girl’s face, but Jiyong did not notice. “Hot?” she asked, switching to English.

Jiyong only nodded. The cold numbness enveloped him in the way a sheet might cloak an object: it kept his thoughts in a bubble, hiding them away, even from himself. But the bubble was fragile, and his thoughts struggled to escape. Every interaction he had with the outside world was like an attack on its surface and the barrier was slowly being breached. He had received his latte from the counter and had taken his first sip when it happened—the hot liquid touched his tongue and the stinging pain woke his senses—the bubble popped.

A maelstrom of emotion—an amalgam of guilt, confusion and a desperate longing—twisted in his belly, and seemed to rise up to fill his chest. If any of the patrons of the café had been looking at Jiyong, this change in emotional state would have been barely perceptible to them. His fingers, already clasped around the paper cup, tightened. Where he had been holding the cup for warmth, he now held it as an anchor. His fingers and palms burned, throbbing slightly with the heat, but he could not let go. He thought that if he did so, he might fall back into the abyss again—the void in which Seunghyun _hyung_ did not exist. It was in this position that he sat, looking down at the black plastic lid of the cup he held in between his hands, as the sky turned a steel grey on the outside and the rain began to fall in quick, fat drops against the window pane, running down into and across each other in streaming rivulets.

None of this made sense to him. Not his brief meeting with Seunghyun _hyung_ , not Hye-youn _noona_ ’s intervention, and certainly not what he was feeling now. Seunghyun _hyung_ was _alive_! And he was doing well, it appeared. _Hyung_ had recognized him, that was for sure—he had called him by name—but why had the man spoken to him so… normally? As if it had not been a year and a half since they had last met. Jiyong could not be sure of what _hyung_ had said, but he was certain that there had been no trace of surprise in _hyung_ ’s expression at having met him there—at his old apartment, which he had not been living in for almost a year. And then Hye-youn _noona_ had turned up. There had been no shock in her expression either—she had simply been apologetic, about her brother’s behavior, it seemed. Had she even recognized him? Jiyong could not be sure about that.

How could any of this be? Was this maybe some sort of a joke? Something Youngbae and the rest of the Big Bang members had cooked up perhaps? In revenge for what he had done to the group? But there was _hyung_ , and the two of them had been… in love, hadn’t they? What reason would he have to do this? Question after unanswered question flitted in and out of Jiyong’s mind, and he ran through them over and over until his nerves were raw.

When his latte had all but cooled into a pool of bitter, brown mess, he came to the conclusion that this could not have been a set-up. While both Youngbae and Janghyun knew that he was coming to Seoul today, he had told neither of them where his first stop would be. No one could have known for sure that he would appear at his old apartment. This meant that Seunghyun _hyung_ and Hye-youn _noona_ must have appeared in this place by accident. But that seemed too good to be true. It made Jiyong wonder, not for the first time that day, whether he was seeing things. Had he subconsciously wanted to see Seunghyun _hyung_ so much that he had started to hallucinate? He had not hallucinated before… and the distinction between memory and reality had always been quite clear to him, even when he had been at Youngbae’s house and had seen Tablo _hyung_ 's daughter, Haru, in his memories.

_Am I finally starting to go insane?_ The calm, rational manner in which he posed the question to himself belied the absurd chaos that was his mental state. The fact that Seunghyun _hyung_ was still alive and had grabbed Jiyong’s wrist mere hours ago was at the forefront of this chaos. Yet, it was only because he had actually met _hyung_ that he realized how much a part of him had hoped, ironically enough, _not_ to meet him. Of course he wanted to know how _hyung_ was doing, of course he wanted to solve the mystery that was his ex-lover’s life. But for _hyung_ to actually be alive, and from what it seemed, for him to be _well_ …

Jiyong realized as he sat in the café, still clutching his coffee cup, that what he had truly wanted was closure. He had always mentally prepared himself to hear about _hyung_ ’s death, or to hear that he was on life support, or to face the Choi family’s rejection. And then, he was supposed to have mourned, to have tied up the final knot on his past before packing it away in the corner of his mind’s attic, to be left alone except for the brief occasions when nostalgia called for a revisit. Concealed beneath his eagerness to come back to Seoul, beneath his resentment when Youngbae had suggested he was lucky to have forgotten, concealed even from himself was the niggling desire for this visit to his motherland to have been the final one. His meeting with Seunghyun _hyung_ had unearthed it and Jiyong was horrifically ashamed of himself. 

Removing his hands from the paper cup for the first time in over an hour, he ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. He knew what the simple solution was—to pack his bags and fly straight back to Gibraltar on the next available flight. He would not even have to explain himself very much; he could simply say that he missed Janghyun and that the environment in Seoul had not been to his liking.

But he knew, even as the thought crossed his mind, that he would not be able to do that. A part of him had wanted _hyung_ gone, but that desire had arisen from the very great likelihood that he _was_ gone. The fact that he was not threw a spanner into everything. Jiyong stood at the edge of the rabbit hole, peering down into its dark depths. Unlike Alice, who had jumped in after the waist-coated rabbit without stopping to ponder her circumstances, Jiyong hesitated. He stood, vacillating at the brink, the pitch-blackness a siren’s call he was trying to resist. But his waist-coated rabbit came lopping back for him, grabbing him by the wrist. “ 지용아, 빨리 가자,” the rabbit urged, and Jiyong followed, because he had thought the rabbit gone, but it had come back for him.

* * *

Jiyong woke up in the crumpled sheets of his hotel room the next morning, his dreams (he was certain they had only been dreams) already fading from memory. Someone had been crying: that was all he could remember aside from the feeling of sadness ebbing from his waking consciousness. He rolled over in bed, hugging his knees to his chest, waiting for the feeling to pass. He had no idea what time it was since he had pulled the black-out curtains completely shut over the room windows before going to sleep. He reached for his cellphone on the bed side table—7 23 am. No messages from Janghyun.

He had made his way back to the hotel in a daze the previous day and had ordered pasta through room service for dinner. Telling his partner that it had been a long day, he had shelved plans to FaceTime for that night. He had not quite known what to tell Janghyun about his day, which had really only consisted of one event. He did not want the younger man to worry about him, or so he told himself.

It was his second day in Seoul and Jiyong had originally planned to go to the YG Entertainment building. His intention had not been to speak to anyone, unless someone had recognized him—it had only been for him to take a look at the place, to see the goings-on of what had once been his life. Nothing much, really. Which was how he convinced himself that there was no need for him to go there first thing in the morning. A visit to his former work place could certainly wait until the afternoon. He could spend his time doing other things that morning, like going back to his old apartment, for an example. He needed to meet Seunghyun _hyung_ again and he had no other leads.

And that was exactly how he spent his second day in Seoul—and his third—and his fourth. He would wake up in the morning, convinced that if only he went back to his old apartment, _hyung_ would magically appear—just like he had the first time. So he would shelve the plans that he had originally made for that day, telling himself that he was only putting them off temporarily.

On the first re-visit, he had stood dumbly outside the lobby, then figuring that he had only met _hyung_ on the older man’s way to the basement car park, situated himself in a corner by the elevator there. When Jiyong was convinced that it was past the hour that they had met, the rational part of his mind told him that it was time to leave. But rationality seldom wins in the face of gratuitous hope, so Jiyong stayed. He remained there until it was too cold for him to bear, and then went back to the hotel, making up tales of adventure and amusement in the interim, which he then told to Janghyun in their conversations that night. His third day in Seoul was a disappointing repeat of his second.

On the fourth day, he was struck by the superstition that befalls those who are frustrated by the seeming arbitrariness of life’s events. He woke up in the morning convinced that he needed to repeat each and every motion he had taken on the day he had met _hyung_ for the man to appear, deciding with the same indiscrimination characteristic of superstitious practices that these actions began with buying an egg bun. So an egg bun he bought, careful even to mimic the choking he had done on the first day. It was to his pleasure then, that upon reaching the old apartment, he spotted the woman with the stroller, whom he had followed into the lobby on the first day. Thus he copied his actions from that morning, an absurd excitement mounting within him as the elevator reached the tenth floor. He stepped out, walking first to his left, pretending to check out the front door, then heading to his right to do the same and finally pressing the button for the elevator. He performed the actions with a measure of gravitas, as if they were part of a ritual to summon _hyung_ , so one can imagine his disappointment when the elevator doors opened to reveal nothing but his own reflection in the mirrors.

In the end, it was the way his stomach dropped and the slight prickle he felt behind his eyes that made him see how foolish he had been to pin his hopes on what was essentially a random sequence of movements.  Jiyong wanted to scream aloud in frustration. Instead, he took a deep breath, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the highest floor. He was going to take a look at the view the building afforded — a view that he had probably seen multiple times when he had still lived here. Discerning his own stupidity had freed him from the immediate obsession of pursuing Seunghyun _hyung_. Jiyong had wasted three days; he would not squander any more of them.  He promised himself not to come back to this place again; this trip to the top floor would be his last.

The elevator doors slid open, and Jiyong stepped out. He scanned his surroundings, turned to the right, and walked until he reached the end, where the emergency exit staircase was. Beside it was a large awning window, through which he had an unobstructed view of the park below. He twisted his body sideways so that he could sit down on the small ledge beside the window and gazed down towards the park. The landscape spread out below him, a mixture of greens, grays and browns. Many of the trees were bald, spindly branches sticking out from the skinny trunks in every direction. Suddenly he was hit by vertigo. His head swum and he felt giddy, as if he were spinning. Instinctively, he squeezed his eyes shut.

The world seemed to fall away and the sense of vertigo dissipated. The muscles around his eyes relaxed and, keeping them closed, he leaned his head against the cool glass. His ridiculous fixation on keeping an eye on the building, and then on willing Seunghyun _hyung_ into appearance had set his mind on edge. He inhaled deeply, then opening his mouth slightly, exhaled slowly, counting to eight. On six, he heard a soft “bing!”, followed by the sound of the elevator door opening, but he kept his eyes closed, figuring that whichever resident it was could deal with his presence for a few more minutes. 

“지용아, 저기서 뭐해? 밖이 추운데 안에서 기다려야지.”

Jiyong’s eyes flew open. Standing a few feet in front of him, looking strikingly similar to how he had looked three days ago, was Seunghyun _hyung_. Jiyong blinked furiously. When the image of _hyung_ remained before his sight, he squeezed his eyes shut, just as he had done minutes ago, and rubbed at his eye lids. He was hallucinating—Jiyong was almost a hundred percent sure of this. He kept his eyes closed, not trusting his own vision, but he could hear the click of _hyung_ 's shoes on the tiled floor, getting ever so slightly louder with each step. He could also smell the musky scent of some eau de toilette in the air—that too, seemed to get stronger with every step. The clicking stopped, and Jiyong knew it was because _hyung_ was standing right in front of him—even though he had adamantly kept his eyes shut, the older man’s presence seemed to fill the corridor. Jiyong felt himself rooted to the ledge, a mixture of terror and disbelief making his heart race and his palms sweat in spite of the cold. _I am hallucinating, or dreaming, or… maybe... this is... this is Seunghyun hyung’s ghost._

Then he felt the weight of _hyung_ ’s hand on his shoulder. “이제 가자,” _hyung_ said. Jiyong felt a scream rising up from inside him but he bit his lip in an effort to keep it down. At that precise moment, he heard, somewhere from behind _hyung_ , the beeping of an electronic door lock being unlocked. He cracked open an eye to see one of the two doors along the corridor swing open—could that person see _hyung_ too? Jiyong opened his mouth to speak —he had little idea what he would say to this person, or what he would ask, but he had to know if the image in front of him was _real_.

He was saved of the trouble when the resident, an elderly man in a suit, seemed to spot the two of them immediately. “승현이가 오늘 또 왔구나… 혜윤이에게 전화를 해야겠다…” he murmured. Upon hearing _hyung_ 's name, Jiyong felt a wave of relief rush over him. _Hyung_ was real. This old man could see him too.

Something that the elderly man said seemed to throw Seunghyun _hyung_ off. His hand slipped off of Jiyong’s shoulder and he turned around to ask, with a look of uncertainty on his face, “ 할아버님, 저와 제 누나를… 아세요?”

The old man merely shook his head slightly from side to side, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his cellphone, tapping firmly on the screen several times before putting the phone to his ear.

“지용아, 이 할아버지가 왜 너의 집에 계셔?” _hyung_ asked, turning back to face Jiyong. Jiyong looked back up at him, perplexed, wishing he understood even the tiniest bit of what _hyung_ had said. In that second, it struck him how silly he had been—he had downloaded an application on his phone to help him with exactly this. He fumbled with his pockets for the device and tapped on the Translate icon as soon as his phone had been unlocked.

“뭐 하는 거야 지금? 왜 대답 안 해?” _Hyung_ looked at him with an expression of annoyance on his face. The device, despite sounding rather robotic, translated his words into a language that Jiyong finally understood, “What are you doing now? Why do you not answer?”

Jiyong wanted to tell him that he did not understand Korean, but he had done that the first time they had met. _Hyung_ had not switched to English then and Jiyong did not think that he would do that now. He noticed that the red microphone icon was still pulsing—the translator was picking something else up now, snippets of the conversation the elderly man was having.

“I stay with Seunghyun here. You will come and pick him up and go?” the translator voiced monotonously. Whoever it was on the other end of the line seemed to assent, because the elderly man only nodded and hung up. Jiyong knew that he had to act, quickly. Someone was on their way here, and they were going to take Seunghyun _hyung_ away again. Would it be Hye-youn _noona_ this time? It had taken Jiyong three days before he was able to meet _hyung_ for the second time, and he was not sure that he would ever see the man again if he let him go.

In a split second decision, he grabbed _hyung_ ’s arm with one hand and the handle of the emergency exit with the other. Before the elderly man could react, the two of them were out the door and dashing down the staircase.

“왜 그래? 우리 지금 왜 뛰고 있어?” Seunghyun was trailing after Jiyong even though the former’s legs were longer, and Jiyong could tell that he had no idea what was going on. Jiyong managed to drag him along without saying a word for another two flights of stairs before Seunghyun resisted; his free hand reached out to grab the staircase railing, holding tightly onto it as he pulled away from Jiyong.

“뭐 하는 거야? 질문 좀 대답해!” _Hyung_ was irritated now. His annoyance frustrated Jiyong—couldn’t _hyung_ just trust him? Jiyong wanted to give him some sort of explanation but what was he supposed to say when he could neither speak nor comprehend Korean? Jiyong had to get him to move somehow, and so in a fit of desperation, he spoke into his phone.

“나를 따라라,” the voice said with a mechanized brightness, in tones that reminded Jiyong of his Korean teacher from his week-long attempt to pick up the language. _Hyung_ was now looking at him as if he had sprouted an extra head. Jiyong did not blame him, and yet, he was acutely aware that this was not a good time for them to be standing around, figuring things out. So he grabbed _hyung_ 's hand again, pulling him down the next flight of stairs. Perhaps it was the machine’s rendition of “follow me”, or the persistent and purposeful manner in which Jiyong moved that somehow managed to convince him, but Seunghyun did not resist this time, and simply let the younger man guide him along.

Out of breath and perspiring heavily, the two of them arrived at the landing on the ground floor. Jiyong put his index finger to his lips, motioning for Seunghyun to keep quiet. Seunghyun nodded. Both breathed in deeply, breathing out in a small stream of air, trying hard to control their panting. One hand on the handle of the emergency door, the other hand grasping Seunghyun’s, Jiyong eased the door open. He peeped out from the small crack in the doorway and saw two guards standing immediately outside and two more guarded the elevators in the distance. Of course the elderly man had called the security guards. Running off like that was probably the best way of marking himself an unsavory character. Jiyong sighed. He really ought to have thought things out a little more clearly.

Pushing the door shut as silently as he could, he turned around to face Seunghyun. Maybe they could just stay in this stairwell forever. Maybe if he just closed his eyes, clicked his heels together and wished hard enough, they would be spirited off to somewhere else. For the first time since they had met that day, Jiyong looked directly at Seunghyun in the face. _Hyung_ ’s eyes, framed by the same pair of tortoiseshell glasses he had been wearing on their previous meeting, crinkled in the corners. He was observing Jiyong and he seemed amused. _Hyung_ was really there in the flesh, standing right in front of him.  None of this felt real.  A bark of a laugh escaped Jiyong’s lips and he quickly muffled it with the palm of his hand. _Hyung_ probably thought that they were playing some sort of a game. Once the laughing began, however, Jiyong found it difficult to stop. He doubled over and grabbed his stomach, biting his lip in an effort to keep himself quiet. He was struck by the sheer absurdity of the situation and of everything that had happened in the last few days. He realized he had no idea whom it was he was that they were running from: if it was Hye-youn _noona_ , wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have stayed put? To have spoken to her when she arrived so that he could find out what was happening once and for all? Why had he run? What was he afraid of?

Just then, Jiyong heard a distinct buzzing noise—he instinctively checked his own cellphone, even though he had not felt anything before. It was Seunghyun _hyung_ ’s and Jiyong looked up to see him take the call.

“어, 누나. 나 지금 지용이랑 같이 있어.”

This time, Jiyong turned on the translation application almost immediately.

“She’s a little weird today. We’re on the emergency stairs. It seems to be on the first floor,” the translator said cheerily, followed by, “You have something to tell me? Alright, I’ll go to the lobby and wait.” Jiyong was, again, surprised by the quality of the translation. Some of it did not quite make sense to him, but it was definitely better than not having understood anything at all.

Finishing his call, Seunghyun turned to Jiyong. In one long step, _hyung_ had closed the distance between the two of them. Jiyong looked up in surprise. Before he could react, Seunghyun had leaned forward and pressed his lips against Jiyong’s. The kiss was over almost as soon as it had begun. Jiyong could only stare blankly ahead in shock; Choi Seunghyun was as real as it got.  _Hyung_ grinned as he spoke. The application, which was still open, picked up his voice and said, “My sister wants to meet me. Let’s stop playing today. You have to go to the company.”

Jiyong cringed and Seunghyun looked at the device quizzically. Not wanting to have to explain anything when he was himself so confused, Jiyong gave an awkward laugh, stuffed his phone into his pocket, and pulled open the emergency exit door to the lobby where he saw Hye-youn _noona_ standing in the middle of the lobby with the four guards he had spotted before.

Pre-empting her suspicion, Jiyong unhooked his mask from behind his ears with both hands as he approached the group. Hye-youn _noona_ ’s eyes widened in shock.

“지용이 맞아? 진짜 지용이야?” she demanded. Jiyong did not have to use the translator to know what she had asked.

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s been a long time hasn’t it?” he returned.

“왜 영어를 하는 거니? 한국을 떠나서 한국말 아예 안 하기로 하는 건 아니지?” she spoke so quickly that Jiyong did not have enough time reach for his phone.

“Can we discuss this somewhere else?” he asked, glancing meaningfully at the guards, who had moved to surround him. There was a pause. Jiyong wondered if he ought to run his words through the application, just in case she had not understood him. But she nodded and spoke briefly to them.

For a moment, Jiyong was afraid that she had told the guards that she had no idea whom he was and that they ought to hand him over to the police. But they stepped back and left the three of them standing alone in the middle of the lobby and the moment was over.

“Let’s go to our house,” she said simply, gesturing towards the elevators. It took Jiyong a second to realize that she had spoken in English. She seemed to understand on some level that he was not speaking English by choice. Perhaps explaining his condition would not take as long as he had expected after all.

* * *

Arriving at the house in question, Jiyong found himself impressed by its size. He had no idea if this had been the same residence that Seunghyun _hyung_ or the Choi family had taken up when they were still in Big Bang, but it did not seem like the right moment to ask. Jiyong had sat in an awkward silence in the back of the car throughout the ride, while the Choi siblings, who sat in front, argued constantly with each other. Part of him had wanted to switch the translator on, to find out what it was that they were arguing about so heatedly. The other part felt like it would be an infringement upon their privacy. The latter part of him won out, largely because he did not have a pair of earphones with him and there was no way in which he could use the application discreetly otherwise. Although he did spend a good part of the journey arguing with himself about how they were hardly speaking in soft, dulcet tones to each other and so they could not possibly mind him hearing. What made the journey most awkward, however, was the fact that Seunghyun _hyung_ would look up from the passenger seat into the rear-view mirror and try to engage Jiyong in conversation whenever the argument with his sister appeared to reach a stalemate. This happened several times during the trip, and each time, Jiyong would fumble with his phone, tapping on the Translate icon. Because the machine could only catch last half of _hyung_ ’s speech, Jiyong was often left with a garbled version of what had been said. Hye-youn _noona_ , who seemed to take pity on him, would try her best to translate _hyung_ ’s words into English, only to be rebuffed by her younger brother. It was then that the arguments would begin anew, and Jiyong would sink back into the leather seat, wishing quite desperately that he could disappear into them.

It was this unfortunate experience that made Jiyong decide that when the time came for things to be explained, he would be the first to volunteer his story. So when they were seated in the lounge, each of them with a glass of wine in front of them, Jiyong launched into an explanation of his condition—he began with the car crash, went on to talk about the coma and jumped straight to speaking about his bilingual aphasia. It was paramount that he explained why he could not speak Korean.

It seemed that the longer he spoke for, the deeper the creases in Hye-youn _noona’_ s forehead became and when he had finished his spiel, she said, “Okay… I get that you can’t speak Korean, but… if you don’t mind me being straightforward, why are you here? You moved away from Korea with your family a few months ago, didn’t you?”

Jiyong realized then that he had skipped over his amnesia and so quickly filled her in on that as well. Calm though she had been when he had mentioned everything else, Jiyong noticed her features freezing when he spoke of himself as an amnesiac.

“You… remember… nothing at all?” her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Well, no. I have some childhood memories… and I’ve gotten back some memories of Big Bang and of… Seunghyun _hyung_ … through… my dreams…” he replied, taking a sip from his wine glass. How was it that explaining his amnesia never got any easier?

Seunghyun _hyung_ had remained so quiet throughout Jiyong’s explanation that Jiyong had almost forgotten he was there. It was only when Jiyong spoke his name that he crouched forward in his seat, his interlocked fingers propping up his face and his elbows resting on his knees. There was a pause before Seunghyun spoke, slowly but clearly, “How did… all of this happen in… such a short time?”

Jiyong frowned. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Hye-youn _noona_ throwing him a wary glance. It had been several months since his coma. ‘Short’ was not quite the word he would have used to describe that period. Something was off. Jiyong had felt it since he had met _hyung_ in the elevator for the first time and _hyung_ ’s very first question to him in English confirmed it now.

Looking at her watch, Hye-youn said quickly, “아 맞다! 이제 한시가 다 됐네. 승현아, 연준이 유치원 차가 곧 올테니 나가서 마중 갈래? 삼촌이 보고 싶대.”

_Hyung_ paused for a second before getting up from his seat. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, patting Jiyong on the back of his hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mask, putting it on before heading out. Knowing that Hye-youn _noona_ had meant to send him away, Jiyong did not stop him.

When Seunghyun had gone clear out of earshot, Hye-youn, who had been fiddling with the hem of her dress, heaved a huge sigh and then asked, “The amnesia that you have… what is it called?”

Jiyong looked confusedly back at her, “What do you mean? It’s just called amnesia.”

She gave a frustrated sigh, withdrew her phone from her purse and started searching for something. “Retrograde amnesia,” she announced finally, looking up at him for confirmation.

“Ah, yeah. It’s when you forget things that happened before the trauma or the injury,” he intoned, “so that’s what you were asking for.” How was he supposed to know what she had meant?

“Jiyong-ah,” she said his name the way they would in Korean, with an expression of affection attached. It reminded him of his own sister. “You said you remembered some things. Do you… remember what happened with Seunghyun?”

The slightly embarrassed way in which she looked at him made it clear what she was referring to. “You mean him hitting his head and being sent to the hospital?” he asked candidly, trying as far as possible not to bring up any parts of the incident that would make her feel even more uncomfortable. His desire to find out about what had happened to Seunghyun _hyung_ trumped his wish to have a go at her and the rest of their family for keeping _hyung_ away from him. Of course, it helped that he had no memory of the event, and so held no resentment towards her.

“Yes… he hit his head and he was in a coma for a long time,” she murmured, “We did not think he would wake up, but we were always hopeful…”

She seemed ready to tell an entire story, but Jiyong, who had spent three full days thinking about _hyung_ on and off was impatient. “There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking straight at her in the eyes.

Her gaze did not waver but she replied in a voice barely audible, “He suffers from amnesia. Not retrograde, like yours. Anterograde amnesia.”

“What? What is that? What do you mean?” Jiyong demanded.

Hye-youn did not reply immediately. She unlocked her phone and tapped on the screen a few times. He recognized the white and green color scheme of Naver—the Korean people’s preferred web portal. Jiyong knew she was searching for an explanation, finding a way to help him understand, and so he waited, pressing his lips together tightly, swallowing the multiple questions that would otherwise have burst forth, chief of which was whether all of this was a very bad joke.

“He hit… the side of his head,” she began, after what seemed like a long time, “the doctor said the part is called the… temporal lobe. In anterograde amnesia, the patient…” She struggled, trying to fit the polysyllabic foreign words into a coherent sentence before pushing her phone towards Jiyong, saying, “I think it’s faster if you read this.”

“Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact,” Jiyong read aloud from the Wikipedia page that she had found for him. He looked up from the screen to her powdered face, trying to find a sign, any sign that he was being pranked—it was an elaborate prank, to be sure, but even that seemed more likely than this. Yet, there was no trace of a smile on Hye-youn _noona_ 's face. Her shoulders drooped and Jiyong noticed the dark circles under her eyes for the first time.

“The day he woke up from his coma… we were so happy. His body was weak, but he seemed okay. The doctor warned us. He said that we needed to observe him for awhile more, but he seemed to remember everything… And then he started asking for you… we put off the… explanation for as long as we could… When we finally told him that you had moved away, he was devastated… But we thought that it was for the best, that he would finally be able to move on… But then, he started asking the same questions each day, as if we had not explained anything to him at all… It’s like every day is a new day to him,” she spoke haltingly, but coherently, and Jiyong did not interrupt.

“Up to… what point does he remember?” he asked, handing her back her cellphone.

“He remembers the… incident. He remembers hitting his head in the bathroom and then going to bed some time after that. It took us awhile to get this information out of him, because he was still trying to hide his relationship with you from us…”

Hye-youn did not look at Jiyong in the eyes.

“So… he isn’t able to remember… anything after that? Like the fact that I’m here right now… he won’t remember any of this?”

“Yes… I mean no, he won’t.”

“And what about when we met four days ago? He doesn’t remember that either?”

“He… he doesn’t usually remember anything for more than a few hours. The doctor says that damage to his…” she glanced at her cellphone, “temporal lobe… makes him unable to turn short-term memories into long-term ones. That’s why he keeps going back to where you lived last time. He thinks that the two of you… have a schedule to go to together,” she explained.

“You mean he goes back every single day?” Jiyong gave her an incredulous look.

“Not every day. Sometimes we distract him. Right after he was discharged, we locked him in the house… but that really stressed him and us out. Then, we realized that he still wakes up every day thinking that he is Big Bang’s TOP and so he takes his own precautions whenever he leaves the house. We stopped worrying about that too much, especially since most of the time, he goes back to the apartment you used to live in… to look for you,” she sounded almost apologetic.

“But we don’t live there anymore… we haven’t lived there for several months..." Jiyong mused, and quickly added, "Not that he would know that… but doesn’t it annoy the people who currently live in the place if he goes there looking for me so often?” Jiyong’s thoughts went back to the elderly man.

“Of course… so when we found out what he was doing, we explained his… amnesia to them. They’re an old couple, so they’re very nice about it. In fact, nowadays they call me when they see that he is there. That was how I found out about him this morning,” she replied.

The two sat in an awkward silence, Jiyong trying to process everything that he had been told. His mind had started buzzing again—on the surface, Seunghyun hyung looked perfectly alright, and yet Jiyong knew that beneath that facade, everything was horribly wrong. As a matter of fact, his entire day—no, his entire week—had gone awfully wrong. How was it that he had managed to go from a state of reasonable happiness in Gibraltar to… this? What was “this” anyway? Pronounced confusion and disbelief? Bewilderment? Incredulity? Jiyong decided that he did not know. Like Alice, he gone down the rabbit hole, and it seemed that, just like Alice, he would somehow have to make it through Wonderland.


	10. 반복되는 꿈들이 | Dreams on Repeat

_He was sitting on a plot of grass in the shade of a large camphor tree, his back leaning against its thick, sturdy trunk. It was a warm spring day and he noticed sunlight streaming through the leaves, making small, bright patches on the garden floor. He looked down at his own body and saw that he was wearing a white muscle tank and black jeans. He sat up straight and wriggled his fingers, observing them as they moved; the motion felt surreal, like he was watching another version of himself from a distance. It occurred to him that he was not quite sure what he was doing there, but he realized that he did not mind not knowing. He leaned back against the tree trunk again, crossing his legs at the knee._

_He closed his eyes and let the breeze ruffle his hair. Birds chirped gaily and he, too, began humming a tune to himself, tapping his foot to the rhythm. He might have fallen asleep, had it not been for the voice that called out to him, “Yong! Where are you?”_

_Yong… that was his name._

_He recognized the voice. “Here, Hyun. I’m here,” he replied with his eyes still shut. He heard footsteps, the rustle of grass underfoot. He knew he should get up, make it look like he was doing something important, but his eyes remained shut. Hyun would not be pleased. Then the man was beside him, shaking his shoulder. Finally, he opened his eyes._

_“Yong, what are you doing here?” the man asked._

_“I… I don’t know…” he replied, truthfully, “but it’s nice, isn’t it? This place.”_

_The man frowned, “You were supposed to come over to my place for brunch. We were going to climb the Rock together, remember?”_

_He shook his head, “I’m waiting for someone.” He was not sure how he knew this, but once he had said it out loud, he was quite sure it was true. When the man did not respond, he added, “You can sit with me, if you want. I think he’d want to meet you too.”_

_The man sank down onto the tuft of grass beside him and he closed his eyes again. The sun had shifted in the sky and a ray of sunlight shone across his face, making him see a dull red on the back of his eyelids. He would have moved from the spot if it had not been so comfortable._

_He was about to knock off again when the man said, “I think he’s coming.”_

_“Who’s coming?” he asked._

_“The person you were waiting for.”_

_“The person… I’m… waiting for…” he repeated slowly. Was he waiting for someone?_

_“He’s almost here! Look!” the man whispered urgently._

_He opened his eyes. The man was pointing at a spot somewhere down the pathway. He squinted and could just make out a figure, which seemed to be moving in a rather irregular motion. He stared as the figure moved closer to them in its peculiar manner. As the distance between them closed, he realized that the figure, which took the shape of a man, was bopping up and down—“hopping” was probably the most fitting word he could use to describe its motion._

_He burst into laughter, “Hyun! He’s hopping! He really is hopping, isn’t he?”_

_He turned around, expecting the man to laugh along with him. “Yong, you know he’s coming for you, don’t you?” the man said softly, his face an unreadable mask._

_“Yeah… yeah, I know that… I’ve been waiting for him,” he replied, a smile playing across his lips, “I forgot, that’s all.” He turned back to watch the figure bouncing its way down the path. When it was just a few yards away, he could just begin to make out what he was wearing—a black waistcoated suit with green and blue checkers over a white shirt, complete with a red bow-tie. He carried an umbrella under his left arm, and as he approached, retrieved a pocket-watch from his right pocket._

_“_ 지용아 _!_ 빨리 가자 _!” the hopping, waist-coated man said, “_ 시간이 없어 _!”_

_Jiyong… right… that was his name, he remembered it now._

_The man in the waistcoat put his pocket-watch away, all the while hopping up and down on the spot in a regular, timed fashion, clearly waiting for him. Jiyong got up from his seat underneath the camphor tree and made to join him._

_“Don’t go with him; come with me,” said the one beside him, reaching out from his position on the ground to grab Jiyong’s hand. Jiyong's head whipped around to face him—he had forgotten that the man was there. Jiyong saw his face and did a double-take. How did this man look so much like the one who was standing on the path, waiting for him? What was this man’s name again? Jiyong could no longer remember._

_“Where to?” Jiyong asked, “Where will you bring me?”_

_“The future, of course. We’ll go into the future. That’s where we were always headed,” the man, whose name he could not remember, replied with a twinkle in his eye._

_“_ 빨리 와 _!_ 늦었어 _,_ 지용아 _!” the man in the waistcoat called. Jiyong turned to face him. He was still hopping, still forever hopping, it seemed._

 _“_ 형 _,_ 안 힘들어 _?_ 그만 뛰어도 되는데 _...” Jiyong responded. Although he issued the words from his mouth, they sounded foreign on his lips. “Hyung”, this was what he called this man… he remembered it now._

 _“_ 그래 _?_ 그만 뛰어도 되나 _..._ 난 모르겠어 _..._ 해 본 적이 없으니까 _...” hyung replied. He seemed to be pondering Jiyong’s words._

 _“_ 근데 형 _,_ 나 할 일 좀 있는데 형 먼저 갈래 _?”_

 _“_ 할 일 _?_ 무슨 할 일 _?_ 내가 도와줄게 _.” It occurred to Jiyong that hyung did not look the least bit worn out from all his bouncing._

 _“_ 내 옆에 있는 이 사람한테 설명 좀 해야 돼 _..._ 내가 형이랑 어디로 가는지 _...”_

 _“_ 사람 _?_ 무슨 사람 _?_ 네 옆에 사람이 없는데 _...”_

_Jiyong’s head swiveled around. Hyung was right. There was no one there. He was so sure that there had been someone there before. So sure. It must have been a trick of the light. He shook his head and turned back to face the pathway._

_Hyung smiled and held out his hand, “_ 가자 _.”_

_“_ 어디로 _?” Jiyong asked as he walked forward and took it._

_“_ 과거 _…_ 과거로 가자 _,” he replied with a wan smile. Then, with Jiyong’s hand in his, he bent his knees and gave a huge leap. The both of them shot straight upwards into the sky._

_Jiyong’s heart only had time to lurch once before they were falling, falling, falling—streaking past wispy clouds and heading straight for the greenery below. They were going to crash! His heart hammered wildly against his ribcage. A small voice in his head told him to squeeze his eyes shut, or at the very least, to tear his gaze away from the ground, but his entire body was frozen stiff. The ground, lush and green with grass, was getting closer and closer with each passing second._

_Then Jiyong noticed a black spot on the expanse of greenery, a black spot that was getting larger as they approached it from above. A hole! They were heading straight towards a hole!_

_There was a whoosh! as they slid past the opening into the brown-black earth. They were still falling, but Jiyong was no longer as fearful as before. Only when he realized that he could see did he register the fact that tunnels were supposed to be dark. Instead, this one was lit up by little yellow lights of an unidentifiable shape. Jiyong squinted, trying to make out what they were._

_Crowns! Those are crowns! he mused._

_Just as suddenly as they had leapt, the two men landed. They stood in front of a wooden door that was wide but short—only a quarter of his height. Jiyong would not have recognized it for what it was if he had not seen the small silver door knob by the side._

_“_ 비밀 번호 입력해 _,_ 지용아 _,” hyung said, pointing down towards something smack in the middle of the door. Jiyong bent down to inspect it, and realized that it was a key pad._

 _“_ 비밀 번호 _?_ 내가 그걸 어떻게 알아 _?” Jiyong asked, confused._

 _“_ 아는 거야 _._ 마음 속에 _,” hyung replied, patting his breast with his open hand, over the spot where his heart ought to be._

_Jiyong shook his head but pressed a few of the buttons anyway. 8-7-1-1-0-4. The wooden door swung wide open with a click. Jiyong peered in, but could only see darkness, thick and black._

_“이거 과거로 가는 길이야?_ 어떻게 들어가지 _?”_

 _“응, 들어가면 과거다. 근데 우리_ 굴러야 돼 _,” hyung was already crouching down, getting into position on the floor behind him._

_Jiyong lay down awkwardly on his side, facing his partner. Hyung gave a firm nod._

_Jiyong twisted his upper body and rolled towards the door._

* * *

He awoke in pitch-blackness when his body hit the carpeted floor with a soft thud. Having drawn the black-out curtains shut the night before, as he had been doing the past few days, he had no sense whatsoever of what time of the day it was. In his Anarex-addled state, it took him a moment to reorient himself to reality. He propped himself up on his hands and reached up for his cellphone on the bedside table. The screen glowed—8 47 am. Three hours and fifteen minutes to go—he had time.

He sunk back down onto the floor and lay spreadeagled, his back flat against the coarse carpet. His eyes were directed to the ceiling, but his gaze was unfocused. Where would he have been if he had not woken up? What would he have found behind that wooden door? He shut his eyes and drew his hands up to his face, letting the images that he could recall run through his mind. 

He had been lazing under a camphor tree when Janghyun had arrived. They were supposed to have been doing something together, but Jiyong had bailed—no, he had completely forgotten the engagement. Then he had wanted Janghyun to meet Seunghyun _hyung_ , but when Seunghyun _hyung_ had arrived, he had been in a rush. And _hyung_ had been hopping—weird, but nothing out of place for a dream, he supposed. He had wanted to leave with _hyung_ —had forgotten even to introduce the both of them to each other—but Janghyun had tried to stop him. Then Janghyun had disappeared and he had left with _hyung_ , who flew him into the sky and dropped with him into some hole in the ground. And then there had been the door, with the password, that he had somehow known… What were the numbers again? 8-7… something…

He had been having odd dreams every night since his second meeting with _hyung_. The dreams had been different, and yet oddly similar. Seunghyun _hyung_ and Janghyun featured in them without fail, and he always wanted the both of them to meet each other, but they never would. In every dream, he left one of the two of them behind.  He sighed and lifted his phone off the ground until it glowed directly over his head—9 03 am. Three hours to go. He could go back to sleep if he wanted… Maybe the dream would continue where it had left off. But sleep had not come easily the previous night, which was why, having also felt the symptoms of a cold coming on, he had taken the Anarex that he had brought along with him just in case. The effects of the drug were beginning to wear off, and Jiyong was not sure that he would be able to fall asleep again without assistance.

Janghyun’s flight was scheduled to arrive at noon today. Jiyong had offered to pick him up at the airport, but he had refused, saying that he could make it out to Seoul just fine. There was no reason for Jiyong to take the KTX all the way to Incheon airport, just to take it all the way back with him.

“Stay at the hotel. Rest. You’re sick,” he had said. Janghyun’s argument made sense—he always made sense.

It had been several days since Jiyong had gone to the Choi residence, and as many days since he had begun fighting with himself over what he was going to do next. He had two choices—say goodbye to Seunghyun _hyung_ , go back to Gibraltar and go back to living the life he had led before he stepped foot into Seoul, or stay here and try to make something out of this mess. He knew that the Choi family would not hold it against him if he were to pick the former option—they might have had, if they had not so brazenly cut off all contact with him when _hyung_ had been hospitalized. But since they had made that choice, they had no right to expect him to stay in Seoul or with _hyung_ now—Hye-youn _noona_ had said as much herself. What bothered him the most about that decision was the fact that he could say goodbye a million times, and _hyung_ would not remember a single instance of it—not for more than a few hours anyway.

Every time Jiyong thought about it, he was struck by the complementarity of their illnesses. They were like yin and yang together. While he was still recovering from retrograde amnesia, _hyung_ suffered from anterograde amnesia. The greatest part of Jiyong’s memories consisted of things that had taken place after his coma. _Hyung_ , on the other hand, could only ever remember events that had happened before his trauma. Together, they covered past and present, present and future. Still staring at the ceiling, Jiyong laughed bitterly, his chest rising and falling in little jerks on the carpeted floor. What a twisted sense of humor Fate had.

But of course, there was also Janghyun. Janghyun, who had known that something was wrong all along, but had trusted Jiyong to sort it out anyway. Janghyun, who spoke the language that had since become Jiyong’s mother tongue, whose temporal lobe was not damaged and whom Jiyong could see a future with. And now, Janghyun, who had quit his part-time job at the restaurant and taken a flight out of Gibraltar simply because Jiyong had asked him too.

Jiyong had gone through this argument in his mind multiple times. So he knew how it ended: the logic of staying with Janghyun was simply too strong, so his brain conjured up an emotion instead. Lust... love... he wasn't quite sure what it was anymore. What had been a quick peck in the stairwell with Seunghyun _hyung_ that had, in that moment, shocked Jiyong more than it had aroused him, had since transmogrified into quite the monster. The first time he had had this argument with himself, he had almost dropped everything and bought a ticket back to Gibraltar. He remembered selecting a date of departure when the kiss had snuck itself into his thoughts, and he had not been able to keep it out of his rational mind since. It was just a kiss, a single kiss. Jiyong shook his head to get the image out of his mind. The more he thought about it, the less stupid it felt to give up his entire future for a single kiss, which was precisely why he had done the selfish thing and had requested that Janghyun joined him in Seoul. He needed his partner beside him as a physical reminder against his stupidity.

Jiyong had not yet told him about having met Seunghyun _hyung_. They had chatted over video-call a few times since that day, and Janghyun had asked him every single time if something was up, and Jiyong had refused to tell him anything until the previous night, where he had broken down and begged Janghyun to join him in Seoul, promising to tell him everything upon arrival. But being the coward that he was, Jiyong did not plan to tell Janghyun anything—Jiyong would simply show him. 

Jiyong had left the Choi residence the same way he had turned up—via Hye-youn _noona_ ’s car. Not wanting him to go through too much trouble, she had driven him back to his hotel in Seoul. Before parting, she had wanted to make plans for another meeting, and had suggested that she pick him up from his hotel the following Wednesday—today—at 6 pm. Perhaps the three of them could have dinner together? At a restaurant that he and _hyung_ had frequented back in the day?

The car had been stationed in front of his hotel’s pick-up and drop-off point. Its engine was still running. Jiyong had sat, silent, in the passenger seat, not quite sure what sort of a reply to give. So he had asked, instead, if there had been any improvements to _hyung_ ’s condition over time. _Noona_ had shaken her head, telling him that they had tried all sorts of treatment. The only difference the treatment had seemed to make was to extend his temporary episodic memory storage, allowing him to remember new information he had gained for a slightly longer period of time. Despite that, none of this information went into his long term memory. It seemed like his temporal lobe had suffered permanent damage. The family was not giving up hope, of course, but they were slowly running out of new options to try. And then, she surprised him when she said, “I know it’s difficult to tell, but he seems happier… meeting you… He won’t remember any of this tomorrow… But I really want to thank you for coming… For making his life a little bit better for him… The meeting next Wednesday… you must be thinking, ‘He won’t remember that either, why should I go?’ and you are right. But I think it makes him happier and I think he would really want to see you again.”

“It’s not that… well… it is… but… actually, it’s just… I can’t even speak Korean anymore. How are we supposed to talk to each other?” he had blurted, his voice an octave higher than usual, betraying his consternation. Jiyong hated himself for that question. Hadn’t he chased _hyung_ down in the car park of his old residence? Hadn’t he wanted to meet _hyung_ so badly that he had waited three full days in the cold for him? And yet, here he was, hesitating when she was now giving him a chance to meet him again.

Hye-youn had  _noona_ frowned, her perfectly tweezed eyebrows drawing closer together, “I will figure something out. I will tell him something. You only have to come.”

Her words, which had been reassuring enough to persuade him then, had seemed hollow the moment they had parted. He had begun to fret about the next meeting the moment he had seen her car round the corner of the hotel lobby, disappearing from his sight. But the thought of having Janghyun here with him made him feel marginally better. The two of them would meet—Jiyong would see to that. He would bring Janghyun along for the meeting tonight. Hye-youn _noona_ could not possibly deny him that. It did not matter how awkward the meeting would be. What Jiyong wanted, and he wanted this with the painful desperation of a small child, was for these people from two separate eras of his life to somehow come to terms with each other. He believed, not with logic, but with a blind faith, that if only the two parties met, all his problems would disappear. He would not have to choose between Seunghyun _hyung_ and Janghyun. Everything would sort itself out. He would defy his dreams, his subconscious mind and he would somehow make the two come together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter than the last few I've posted, but I wanted to do a quick one to wish Choi Seunghyun a happy birthday today. (:


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